


In Medias Res

by dimeliora



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, F/M, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Hell, References to Torture, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-16 04:28:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/857784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimeliora/pseuds/dimeliora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wakes a day after dying with no memories of Hell, and no idea what has happened. His only clues are a catatonic Sam, and whatever his brother was doing when they were separated. Written for the spnslashbigbang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first big bang, and the artwork was done by the amazing Weekendship. Her masterpost is found at: http://weekendship.livejournal.com/835.html
> 
> And you're really cheating yourself if you don't go look at it.

_Time present and time past/ Are both perhaps present in time future,/_

_And time future contained in time past./ If all time is eternally present/ All time is unredeemable./_

_What might have been is an abstraction/ Remaining a perpetual possibility/ Only in a world of speculation./_

_What might have been and what has been/ Point to one end, which is always present./ Footfalls echo in the memory/_

_Down the passage which we did not take/ Towards the door we never opened/ Into the rose-garden"-T.S. Eliot_

  
**Eaton, Colorado October 1 st, 2008**  


Dean stares at his own crabbed handwriting for a moment before pulling his jacket tighter and crossing the flagstones up to the front door. The house is quaint if not grand, and the old brick is set off by the fading daylight. The yard sprawls around it, and it hasn't escaped his notice that there isn't a neighbor anywhere closer than a mile. It's the kind of place someone goes to hole up, and Dean knows the look all too well. The glass in the front door is ornate, and he gives it some consideration even as he pushes the doorbell and holds. He's not worried about pissing off the occupant because he's got a gun in his other hand and there's a bullet waiting for her if she doesn't give him the right answers. He waits until he hears the footsteps, slides the gun behind his back, and puts his best "just passing by" smile on while he waits for her to open the door. It's probably a useless gesture, but Dean's willing to cover all his bases.

He knows just enough about her to know that she'll be cautious, but it's probably not a gun she's worried about greeting her. Whatever she is though Dean's got a weapon for it, and he's ready to work the information from her piece by piece if that's what it takes. What he's not ready for is the sight of her when the door opens. She's small. Smaller than the pictures suggested and for half a second he imagines how she'd measure up to Sam. She'd barely reach his chest, and her delicate hands clutch a Bible and a flask as she stares at him curiously. She's certainly pretty, but Dean was prepared for that. Her lips are a dark red, and generous on her elfin face. Black hair hangs gracefully to either side of eyes a shade of blue so dark they could almost be the night sky. Dean doesn't miss that it's long enough to have not seen scissors in years. Tiny, maybe a bit too skinny, but if Dean had met her in a bar months ago he would have tried to take her back to her place and explore every line of her. Before he can open his mouth and start with something reassuring or calming her eyes widen and then she drops the Bible and covers her mouth.

"He did it." Her voice isn't so much shocked as horrified, and then she pulls back a few steps and Dean sees her going for the door even as he's moving instinctually to put his foot in the way and raising the gun to aim at her forehead. She's not slamming it very forcefully because it barely thunks against his boot even as he takes aim. She stares down the barrel without speaking, and Dean expects to see a new kind of terror but it never appears.

"Yeah. He did it. Now you're gonna tell me how to fix it, and what it is." He keeps the gun trained on her even as he steps cautiously across her salt line. Sam's in the car, but Dean will go get him as soon as he's sure she won't be calling the cops, or pulling some kind of mojo. She lets herself be led down the entrance hallway and into a large living room. Dean gestures with the gun and she sits in the armchair and holds perfectly still while he attaches one loop of the handcuffs to the metal bars in the footrest and the other to her hand. She doesn't look like she can drag the thing. He searches her pockets but doesn't find a cellphone. "I'll be right back. Don't move."

She doesn't respond, but he imagines a woman like her could come up with some pretty sarcastic shit in response to a cliche like that. Instead of waiting to see if she'll get her voice back he goes outside again and then collects Sam from the passenger seat of the Impala. His brother's eyes remain on the ground as he allows himself to be herded like the world's biggest fucking sheep along those flagstones and up the steps. Sam pauses for a breath on the threshold and then crosses in when Dean reaches for him. His subconscious avoidance of Dean's touch doesn't hurt as much as it did in the beginning, but it still leaves a bad taste in Dean's mouth. The woman's eyes follow Sam as he crosses the plush carpet, rest on his face as Sam sits in front of the fireplace as close as he can get to the grate without getting burned. Dean makes sure of that at least, because he knows from experience that Sam will climb into the fire if he's left to his own devices. Sam doesn't look up, but his bandaged fingers slide through the carpet and pluck at it idly as Dean watches to make sure he's comfortable before he walks around the bottom floor of the house.

The rooms are all filled with the kind of antique furniture indicative of a person intimately familiar with estate sales and restoration. He lets his fingers trail over a cherry bar before he steps into the kitchen. She's been baking, and he eyes the pies on the counter before making the rest of his rounds. There's a master bedroom down here with an ensuite, and the decorations present in the rest of the house are missing in these two rooms. It has the feel of a brochure picture instead of a real house, and he can't help but wonder if that's in contradiction to the rest of it, or if the other rooms are set dressing for a normal life. Dean knows from his research though that no one comes here, and who she'd be trying to fool is beyond him. He makes a trip up the stairs and finds another bathroom and three bedrooms. One is painted in hospital issue beige and the windows have blackout curtains over them. There's a desk set-up with a large computer and a webcam, and against the wall it faces there's a dry-erase board with a full compliment of colored markers but nothing written on it. He finds a cabinet set into the wall with the router and several other tech pieces he can't immediately identify.

Dean crosses into the second bedroom and finds something much like the one downstairs. Carefully made king-size bed, lack of pictures, and a standard dresser. It's obvious no one has slept here in a long time, but the place is immaculate. He steps into the last bedroom and finds what he's been looking for. The walls are covered in floor to ceiling bookshelves, and the collection here rivals Bobby's for eccentricity. If there's an order to them Dean can't discern it, but he ignores that and focuses on the nest of blankets set behind a devil's trap in the corner. There are two books in the nest and he studies each of them carefully before dropping them both back onto the blankets. He can't read the writing, but he's fairly certain it's Sanskrit. It makes sense because it's in the long list of languages she's supposed to be able to translate. This is where she really lives, and the rest of it is just for show. The five locks on the door would give it away if she'd had time to hide the blankets, water, and jerky. He can see a closet door behind one of the shelves, and he considers trying to get to it before scrapping the idea as a waste of time. He may be here a while and there's time to go exploring later. Instead he goes back downstairs and sits across from her. He takes his time pulling the tools from his duffel. Lays each piece out with precision and care. Silver, salt, holy water, and she watches him the whole time without moving or reacting.

Her eyes move over to Sam as he starts, and her gaze stays steady when he tilts the bottle of holy water to her lips. She drinks without complication, and then holds still for his cutting her, and for the salt. Dean pays attention to the work. Her blood is red, she doesn't smoke or hiss, and there's no change in her facial expression or the color of her eyes.

Dean sees that her attention is still on Sam, and her expression suggests a kind of sorrow Dean can understand. Which doesn't mitigate his anger at all, but she's human. Responsible somehow for what's happened to his baby brother, but human.

"Start with what he did, and then tell me how to fix it." He knows he sounds intimidating, but she doesn't flinch or try to get away from his focus. Instead her head swivels in his direction and she licks those dark lips before biting the bottom one.

"Time is a funny thing. We rely so much on it but in reality it's only another thing we perceive, and give reality to with our perception. That was my big mistake. Not understanding that time isn't a given, a truth, and that everything can happen all at once and never stop happening."

"Lady I'm real goddamn tired, and I'd like to get my brother out of the vegetable garden so you need to get to the point." She wiggles her hand in the cuff and then leans back as best she can while taking in Sam.

"That is the point. Time is not a linear concept that can be tracked easily and ordered by minutes and seconds and hours. Time is not a thing that flows in one direction or another. Time Dean. That's what your brother did, and until you understand that everything you know about it is faulty there's not much I can tell you."

He bites viciously at the inside of his cheek and then lowers the gun and dry scrubs his face until the urge to curse at her is gone. "Let's say I understand that. Go to the next part."

"There was this English professor at Stanford-"

**Eaton, Colorado  May 4 th, 2008**

An English professor at Stanford once told Sam that all good stories begin with a misunderstanding. At the time Dr. Clewsky was ridiculously drunk, and Sam was on his way there. Jess had abandoned him two hours earlier, and he was fairly certain that he'd never forgive her for it. Unless she wore that one set of heels he loved so much with that little skirt, because Sam was only human and some things had to be let go of for the greater good of getting laid. He remembers thinking all of those things even if he can't remember what brand of beer it was that Clewsky kept buying him, or the books Clewsky used to prove his point. Whatever they were Sam remembers what he finally said when Clewsky stopped rambling, and right at this moment it sits at the top of his list of regrets. Clewsky had been a big man, balding, and he would sweat no matter what the temperature was. He was wearing blue. He asked Sam if he _understood_ misunderstandings. Sam had leaned forward and gripped the professor's hairy wrist in one hand even as he realized he may have gone way over drunk at some point he couldn't precisely remember.

_"I misunderstood the meaning of goodbye."_

Clewsky had laughed. Sam remembers that even if Clewsky's response was more important than his mood. He knows that Clewsky took his meaning to be about a girl, some girl any girl, and that Clewsky started waxing philosophic on women in general. Sam hadn't meant a woman, wasn't even sure he'd meant a person really, but he had meant what he said. Even if in the harsh light of sobriety it didn't seem to have any meaning at all. So now here he was standing in front of a door in Nowhere, Colorado with a piece of paper clutched in one hand and no idea at all how to broach the subject he's about to ask. He can't see inside the house because the window in the doorway is a stained glass depiction of the Fall of Lucifer. It's well done, and Sam studies it for a bit as he tries to put his pitch in order. He'll start with his name, and then go from there, but the next step is the one he can't quite figure out. Despite spending his life talking to strangers Sam has never been very good at begging, and ultimately that's what he's going to do. He's going to beg, and if the woman inside tells him to fuck off then Sam's got nothing else. No other recourse, and despite spending the last ten months looking everywhere there's nothing else left to him. Ruby has been a dead end at best, and Sam is honestly starting to question whether she has any intention of helping them at all. Dean's just started to really fight for some new option, but Sam's not depending on that either. Because if it comes down to it the last person Dean's ever cared about saving is himself.

This though. This could be a total dead end, but it was Clewsky who told him about it. Clewsky who indirectly has led Sam's feet to this house in the middle of nowhere. He stares at the brick wall for a bit, wonders how old the house is and how many people have died in it, and then the door opens and he's greeted by a serious looking woman who clutches a flask in one hand and a book in the other. She eyes Sam for a long time, but doesn't bother dousing him with holy water or reading out of the Bible she's clutching. Instead she tilts her head and narrows her eyes.

"What." Sam gets the distinct feeling she doesn't want to know, so she makes it clear that this isn't a question.

"I'm Sam. I came because-"

Her head is already shaking, dark hair falling into equally dark eyes as she shifts her grip on the flask and takes a half-step back. "Don't bother. It isn't true."

Which is what he's afraid of, but her knowing what he wants before he says it gives him hope. "It's my brother. He's only got two months left. Please."

There's silence, dragging on until Sam's aware of every pebble in the treads of his boots and every hair on his head blowing softly in the spring wind. She simply studies him, and then her fingers snap the Bible shut and she closes her eyes. "Who sent you?"

"Dr. Porter Clewsky. Please." He's willing to go to his knees. Willing to clasp his hands, cry, scream, rend his clothing and tear his hair, or whatever it will take to convince her that he's not some tourist and that her help isn't just appreciated it's vital. Because Dean has two months and Sam can't watch it happen. Can't watch his brother be ripped apart by hellhounds and dragged into the Pit. Can't live with the possibility that all he had to do was give into Ruby's temptations and exercise Azazel's power to kill Lilith. Time is running out and they have no back-up plans left.

The name is like a switch, and her dark eyes go from flat to lively in half a second even as her mouth tightens to a thin line. "He's a pompous windbag with delusions of grandeur."

Sam nods once, unsure if this is a test or not, and then pushes hair out of his face. "He liked my interpretation of _The Sun Also Rises_."

If something else has to be said he's not sure what. It's apparently good enough though because she steps back and Sam carefully crosses her salt line and glances upwards at the devil's trap once before crossing through it. She leads him into a well-lit kitchen that smells like chocolate. The source of the scent becomes obvious when he eyes the huge platter of chocolate-chip cookies and feels the same pang he always does in relation to Jess and her last night on earth. She gestures at them before digging in the fridge and pulling out two bottles of beer and dropping one in front of Sam without asking. He studies the label as she deposits the Bible and the flask into a cabinet and then comes back to the table. There's a picture of a map he doesn't instantly recognize and the title, _La Fin du Monde_ , brings a smile to his face that he can't seem to stop. He glances up to see if that puts her off but it doesn't seem to affect her one way or the other. She's studying him though, and Sam holds still and lets her before she places one heavily scarred hand in front of him. Almost touching but not quite. He looks at the thick white lines and how they twist over her fingers and the back of her hand in lines and shapes that would seem random to anyone not as familiar as he is with magic sigils and ideograms.

"It won't work for you and your brother. That isn't how it works Sam." The fingers twitch, and then pull back before making contact. "What did Clewsky tell you?"

"That you wrote the seminal work on the meaning of goodbye."

Long lashes flutter shut over eyes that are only a shade or two away from being black. "Tell me your story."

\-------

**Union Springs, Alabama July 10 th, 1999**

Summer in the South is a vicious and living thing, and even the rare breezes remind him of living in a dryer. Sam's decided there's nothing worse, and if he has to live this way then the least they could do is service the AC unit in the motel rooms. It's not like Union Springs has much to offer tourists, and comfort seems like such a small thing. Instead the air that comes out of the little grate is probably as thick as oatmeal. Or grits if he's being regionally correct. In a few days they'll be headed to Florida, because Sam's picked up the trail of something killing tourists there and he's pretty sure that at this point the only time he and Dad don't fight is when he's giving the man potential hunts. Which is ok right now, because what Sam really wants at the moment is to have some time alone. He can only do so much of the non-supernatural research without getting caught.

His dad specializes in pattern recognition, is probably one of the best hunters in the world because he can use bits and pieces of information to create long and intricate stories that lead to resolution and celebration. That's Dad, and Sam has long since come to terms with it. The man's not very good with computers though, and Sam has taken over that aspect of the whole thing. Give Dad a couple small town papers and he can ferret out even the smallest hint of an unnatural death. Which is great for Sam, because that means his dad has yet to see any hint that his son is planning an escape. It's not that Sam doesn't appreciate the whole thing, but vengeance isn't really what he's after. He loves his father, loves his brother, but he didn't know his mom. Doesn't want to do this anymore, because the price is always bigger than the reward. At least that's what it seems like after 16 years of being moved from city to city. Sixteen years of watching Dad and/or Dean limp back to whatever crappy motel or rundown shack they're staying in looking like death.

Most importantly, sixteen years has been enough to teach him that if he keeps waiting around one day Dean won't come back. That's the one thing Sam will not learn to live with, and it may not make much sense but he's not going to. Sure, the idea of leaving is terrifying, but it'll be easier. Easier on Dean and Dad if they don't have to put up with his complaints and holding them back. Easier on him if he's not so close to Dean when the inevitable happens. They've discussed it before, but Dean won't bend. Won't even consider the possibility that this whole thing isn't worth his life. If Sam can't talk the stubborn asshole into considering himself then fuck him.

Which is an easy way to wave off what is actually a whole ocean of guilt and fear. But Sam just can't. He can't be asked to wait for Dean to die. Can't be asked to sit around and imagine what is waiting for them in the next town and the next. Most importantly he can't be asked to grow any closer to Dean before it ends bloody. So Sam's planning escape routes, and he has the grades to do it. If he can just finish school then he's sure he can get out.

When the door slams open he shuts the browser window and closes the laptop. It was a simple salt and burn they ran into on the way, but that never promises anything in the way of avoiding pain. He's expecting to see one man leaning on the other, but instead he sees Dean looking trashed even though it's ten in the morning and his brother is a year too young to be legally drinking. Not that legalities have ever stopped the Winchesters before.

"Where's Dad?"

"Aww Sammy you care. Such a sweet little guy." Dean squints at him as he closes and locks the door behind him. Plastered or not his older brother checks the integrity of the salt line before he stumbles his way to the bed closest to the door. "Maybe not so little."

"You're drunk."

"Always knew you were the smart one." Dean's grin is easy, casual, and Sam wants to punch it off his face.

"It's ten in the morning Dean. Why are you drunk?"

"Five o'clock somewhere Sammy. Dad'll be back tomorrow."

Dean's eyes drift half-closed, and then flutter open again to narrow at Sam. It always amazes him how green they are. As if every time they leave his sight they get a little more intense. It's that or the human brain isn't equipped to keep that shade in it.

\--------

**Eaton, Colorado  October 1 st, 2008**

"The human brain isn't equipped to handle the vast expanses of eternity. Did you know that?" Her eyes are on Sam again, and she rubs half-heartedly at the handcuff before shutting off her own gaze. She looks pained, and Dean traces the weird swirls of scars on her hands. They match the cuts Sam has under his bandages, and Dean wants to ask but she's in some bizarre trance and he's afraid to break it. "Did you see what my field of study was?"

It pops up behind his eyes, the memory of the websites and journal articles. "You got three degrees, and the majority of 'em have something to do with religion or philosophy. You've written seven books, more than thirty articles, and your thesis is taught as classes at most of the bigwig schools." Her lips curl a bit before she settles back into the chair. "They called you a genius until your breakdown."

"You didn't look up the police reports? That was kind of lax of you."

That's a wrinkle he didn't expect. There were rumors about what caused her break. How she came back from a sabbatical changed, and soon afterwards locked herself away and refused to see people. Taught courses long-distance from her home, and finding her had been a bitch and a half. He imagines it took Sam less than a third of the time it took him.

"You get popped for all the usuals? Narrowly avoid a nice stay in a place with padded walls?"

Her eyes open again and focus on him. "No. I managed to keep my psychosis in check for the remainder of my stay with society. It was the attack I was referring to. My students began to show up with black eyes. Shortly afterwards one nice doomed young man figured out my secret, and took me to a warehouse. Tried to scare the answers out of me. He didn't get much." She looks back to Sam. "He wouldn't have been able to repeat the process even if I did."

"So they started sending demons to finish you off after you got someone out?" Dean watches her jerk as if she'd forgotten he was there and then turn back in his direction.

"What? No. They sent them to remind me not to share. I was warned that a young man was going to come asking for my knowledge, and that if I shared it I'd pay the price. Which is why I had the alarm installed in the room you went into upstairs."

"Fuck." Dean's already starting to get up when she waves a hand to slow him down.

"It isn't calling the police. You wanted to know what he did and how to fix him. I can tell you the first part because it's mine to tell, but the second? I have no idea. On the other hand the man that alarm brings does. It works out in your favor actually." She studies her hands for a second and then looks at some point a few inches to the right of Dean's face. As if she can't meet his eyes anymore but she wants to pretend she can. "I wouldn't leave the cuffs on when he gets here. You probably have six or seven hours."

There's a lot to consider there. Dean could take the cuffs off, and she probably wouldn't try to fight him. She doesn't seem interested in fighting him, but that doesn't mean she won't. She certainly won't leave the house, because it's got all her protection built into it, and out there she'd be a sitting duck. He engages the safety on his Beretta and tucks it in the back of his pants before uncuffing her. Whatever he's expecting the woman to do she doesn't. She gets up immediately and crosses to Sam. He wants to tell her not to reach out. Doesn't want to see the way Sam'll flinch and shudder, but he keeps his mouth shut. Let her see the damage she's caused.

Except Sam doesn't try to get away from her. He sits like an obedient child while she takes his bandaged hands in hers and looks into his eyes. For half a second Dean actually believes Sam's gaze focuses, and then the belief is gone as she lets go and sits beside him. She runs her fingers over the scars on her own hands for a moment before leaning her shoulder against Sam's. It strikes Dean then how alike they are. Sure she's tiny, and wholly feminine, but they both have the same hollow look underneath everything. As if any second now she may check out and join Sam in La La Land without warning. Which scares Dean a fucking lot because this is his only chance to save Sam.

 

"Hey. Hey I need you to focus here." She looks up then and her eyes are so dark with the fire behind her Dean shudders once and barely avoids grabbing his weapon.

"Sorry. It's very strange to have Sam back here and like this. It's hard to remember if he just left or if he's leaving." She pushes a lock of Sam's hair out of his face, and Dean watches as Sam leans towards her scarred fingers.

Asking her to clarify what that means seems like an exercise in futility. "You said reports. Multiple. One was for the kid that nabbed you, but what was the other one?"

"I was in a car crash. The driver was drunk, and he fled the scene. The man we hit called the police, and they tracked us down." She rubs absently at her ribs before lifting her shirt to show Dean a thick puckered scar underneath her left breast. Her eyes catch his this time, as if she's pleading with him to understand without making her really say it. "They found us at an old dirt crossroads twenty miles away, and I was taken to the hospital while he was arrested. Ten years later I took my sabbatical and the rest you know."

A deal. The guy not only made a deal he knew instantly how to get to a crossroads and make one. That answers a lot of questions at once even while it makes more. "Was he an academic or a hunter?"

"A hunter. Raised as one. Just like you two."

"And that's who's coming to dinner?"

Her lips twitch once. "Yes. Which is good because I just baked in case he did. Not that he ever does."

"How long did you live after the crash?"

"He told me later it was just a few minutes. I don't really remember dying, but that's not surprising. I just remember arguing before the crash and then waking up in the dirt next to him. I thought I saw a woman walking off, but that may have been my imagination."

"How long 'til you figured out what he did?"

"A year. Then I had nine left to find out how to save him." She shrugged once, and Dean got the feeling she was going for casual even if she didn't pull it off. "Sam told me you didn't get the standard contract though. He was out of options when he came here, and then he told me his story."

"And you helpfully told him how to get his ass in bigger trouble than he could have imagined." She's not able to look at him when she answers.

"You don't know what it's like to be left behind by the person you love more than anything. To carry all that weight and guilt, and know that in the end you only breathe because he's being tortured in Hell." He goes to argue and her glare cuts him off. "Your dad doesn't count. Remember how you felt when Sam died? That was what he was facing, but a million times worse. He did what he had to do, and I understood what he meant when he told me that he wouldn't make it without you. Stow your judgments Dean, because you're lacking a moral high ground on this one."

He wants to argue. He really does, but there's nothing left for him to say. So he stuck to nodding his head and gesturing for her to go on.

"I told him it wouldn't work for him. His response? 'But-'"

[Next](http://dimeliora.livejournal.com/26331.html)  



	2. Chapter 2

"But I love him."  Sam keeps her gaze even if it makes him uncomfortable. There's something behind her eyes that makes them hard to look at for longer than a few seconds, but Sam's going to try his damnedest to prolong that stare because he wants her to understand. If she does then maybe she'll give in. "I love him."

"Of course you love him. He's your brother. That doesn't mean it will work though Sam. It's a very specific ritual, and the rules go beyond brotherly love."

"We've-uh-I can do that." He's almost afraid to see her expression. There's no telling how she'll react to such a confession, and it could be a deal-breaker. What little cooperation he's gotten so far could completely disappear. Which is why he's surprised when he looks up and finds her eyes sympathetic.

"It couldn't just be you."

Sam thinks of Union Springs, and his hands move restlessly between his knees. "I don't think it would be."

"I've found the biggest problem with college freshman is they never understand the difference in the words think, believe, and feel. Which is it Sam?"

He considers that for a long time as he takes a bite of a cookie. They're good, and she looks honestly pleased when he has a second and then a third. Home-baked goods are a rare commodity in their line of work.

"I believe it." He meets those dark eyes again and sees an apology in her gaze that he can't understand. "I believe that he feels that way too."

"How much research did you do on me?" She takes a cookie herself and considers it before biting off half and leaving the rest on the table. She doesn't look like she enjoys it, but she chews dutifully while she watches him.

"I know you graduated from high school several years early. Youngest person in your field to achieve your master's and your doctorate. Before your unfortunate breakdown they were speculating that you'd revolutionize the whole field if you kept it up. You were courted by Harvard and Notre Dame, but you chose the University of Colorado in Boulder. You're an only child and both of your parents died when you were young. You had a near fatal traffic accident twelve years ago when you were still working on your masters. Every two years you teach a course on the 'Descent' myth."

"By myth do you mean a religious story believed by a group of people or a fairy tale?"

Sam bites his lip for a second, because this is the crux of their conversation. This is the turning point. "The first."

She nods once and then leans back in her chair. "And Clewsky told you that I teach that class because I did it."

Her hands are spread on the table in front of her, and Sam studies the sigils again. "Yes. He told me that."

"So you came here because your brother, the one you love more than a brother, is going to Hell. You think I'll just be able to teach you how to walk in and take him out."

Sam swallows, but her tone isn't condescending or judgmental. She honestly sounds curious. "You're my last hope. If Dean dies I-please you have to understand. He's all I have. I can't lose him."

"What you're asking Sam-it's not as easy as all that. How many of the descent myths do you know?"

Sam's always been good at storing lore. It's not uncommon for him to be able to spout off a story or two that seems insignificant or arcane to the layperson. This woman is anything but a layperson, and he knows that, but he's become almost as much of an expert as she has at this one. "I know it's part of Campbell's Hero Theory. I know the Mwimbo, Inanna, Ishtar, Orpheus, Dante, Odysseus, Osiris-"

She raises a hand and Sam abruptly stops. There's no smile now, not even a twitch of lips, but she seems to have relaxed a little more. "Alright. Not a bad list. You probably would have passed my class. Now tell me, what are the two reasons a hero makes the _katabasis_?"

That throws him for a second, and Sam flounders for an answer. Love. Love was the reason he always read, but if there's a second then… She's watching him carefully and Sam swallows again before he makes a guess. "Power."

Her eyes go a shade darker as she watches him. "Which reason is better Sam? Power or love, and be specific as to why."

"Love. Love is better, because their intention is pure. It gives them more focus, and they come out better in the end."

"Orpheus failed Sam. He looked back. Mwimbo and Heracles came out unscathed because they had nothing to lose. Is love really your answer?"

This is a trick question. If Sam gets it wrong she'll shut down, and the chances of getting it out of her are slim to none. He's seen the crime scene photos of what the kid did to her during his interrogation. Sam doesn't want to hurt her, but he's willing to if it's his only chance to save Dean.

"Yeah. I'm going to stick with love on this one." He watches her fingers push a strand of hair out of her face, and that's when he gets just the right angle to see what the sigils mean.

"Sam? Are you alright?"

 

\------

 

**Union Springs, Alabama July 10 th, 1999**

"Sammy? You alright?" Dean's eyes are still narrowed, slightly glazed, but beautiful nonetheless. Sam has to take a deep breath and try to look away. Dean sees too much, and if he studies Sam for long he may get past that dopey little brother exterior and dig out something Sam doesn't want to be exposed.

"Yeah man. Just wondering why you got plastered in the morning?"

Dean keeps studying him for a second before he begins a rather amusing and futile attempt to remove his shoes with a series of deathly glares. "Nah, Sammy. Got drunk at night. Just stayed that way. Shouldn't you be in school?"

It takes every bit of his willpower not to look over at the laptop. "Yes Dean. I was a bit preoccupied."

His brother's face gets a distasteful look, and he gives up and tries to struggle his shoes off with his hands. "It's that kinda vocab that'll get you everywhere man. Smart kid. Always said so." Dean manages to remove one boot and starts to fight with the other one. "Proud of yah."

That's the last straw, and Sam stands up and grabs for the laptop before a big callused hand lands on his wrist. He turns to see those green eyes focused on him, and knows that Dean was never distracted. Never bought his stupid excuses, because he's Dean and nobody knows Sam better.

"What is it Sammy? What's buggin' yah?" He begins to wonder if Dean is even as drunk as he's acting.

"What's bothering me Dean? You and Dad stay out all night, and then he lets you drive home drunk without a care in the world. Bad enough I have to wonder when something is going to gut you, but do I have to sit around wondering when you'll wrap your dumb ass around a tree?"

There's a moment when aggravation wars affection on Dean's face, but the second feeling wins out in the end. "You really worry 'bout me that much Sammy? That's sweet."

Which is when Sam punches Dean. Drunk. He's definitely drunk, because he doesn't dodge and the full force of the hit catches his jaw as Dean goes sprawling backwards onto the bed. Sam climbs over him and starts to punch harder, years of concern and worry and grief pouring out of his fists, and Dean just lies there and takes it as if the whole thing is a foregone conclusion. It takes Sam several minutes to realize that he's talking, and the words coming out of his mouth are both revealing and senseless.

"Fucker…crazy fucker….make me love you…worry…won't stop until you're fucking dead…then what Dean? Then what asshole?" He's not hitting anymore. He's crying too hard and Dean's underneath him spitting blood and lying still. Sam expects any second Dean will be sober enough to knock him off and give him the beating he deserves. Sam's not as trained as his brother, doesn't have the muscle mass, and the growth spurts he's been experiencing still haven't gotten him quite to Dean's level although he's close.

So it's even more shocking when arms come up and around him, and then Sam's face is pressed against Dean's neck. He can feel the soft cotton of Dean's t-shirt, smell alcohol and the lingering trace of someone's perfume over the gunpowder and aftershave scent of Dean. There's sweat and the citrusy scent of soap, and Sam briefly wonders if Dean tried to wash some of those smells off of himself before he came back to their latest temporary home. All of it is secondary though to the fact that he's crying like a fucking baby in Dean's arms, and his older brother is letting go of the fact that Sam's seriously dented his face.

"Shhh Sammy. It's ok. I got yah. I got yah kiddo."

 

 

\--------

 

**Eaton, Colorado October 1 st, 2008**

 

"Shhh Samuel. It's alright now. You're safe here." Dean's come back from getting a snack from the fridge to find her kneeling in front of his brother. Sam must have broken out of his vegetable state for a few seconds, and Dean's annoyed he didn't hear it from the kitchen. He crouches beside her, but Sam flinches away from his touch even as he leans into hers. Dean hates her a little bit right then. More than he already did for putting this stupid fucking idea in his baby brother's head. For giving Sam the ability to destroy himself. He studies the tear tracks on Sam's face. Remembers the first time the kid broke that staring nothingness to begin keening and rocking. He'd tried to hold Sam then, and the response had been Sam almost breaking his nose in an attempt to get away from Dean. It was the last time he did anything more than getting near and making soothing noises.

"Why the fuck does he let you touch him?" Dean's surprised honestly when it comes out of his mouth. He'd meant to ask her something unconnected. Something that bared less of their unconventional relationship, but his mouth has been moving on its own for days now. With Sam as his captive and unresponsive audience Dean has been talking about everything and anything in a desperate attempt to give Sam a reason to come back.

"I don't feel substantial to him. Or at least that's my theory because I'm not really sure. Like I told you I'm not qualified to fix him." Her fingers keep stroking Sam's face for a moment, and then there's this dreamy far-off look. "It's amazing really. He's the first thing I've touched since I got back that feels natural."

Dean swallows his anger and considers that for a moment. "So Sam told you he loved me and you spilled the beans? Not a state secret then."

She steps back from Sam and takes the armchair again, her hands clasped together under her chin. "No. Sam told me he loved you, and I told him that love wasn't the only reason people cross that line. Was he sure it was what he wanted? He assured me it was, and then he became very upset."

"Why was he upset?"

"He read my hands." She glanced down in their direction and her lips tightened. "That was enough to dull the edge of his interest in my technique. At least for a few minutes."

Dean can picture it without being told. Knows already the half-second look of Sam realizing that his plan is a bad one, and then going for it anyway. That's Sam through and through. He imagines his brother had felt that the night they spent in Pennsylvania, known he was making a mistake and made it anyway, but that can't be changed now. All Dean has to hang on to is the possibility that Sam can be fixed. That he can be brought back so Dean can kick his ass and Sam can know he earned it. Apologize for his half-assed self-sacrifice. It's Dean that's supposed to be sacrificing.

"What do they say?"

She looks over to Sam's hands now, and her lips curl slightly downwards. "It doesn't matter for your purposes. Just know that they paint a very vivid portrait of what your brother is currently experiencing. They were the key to open the doorway into the Underworld."

"Humor me sweetheart." It sounds flat and dead, but she looks up and the surprise is evident on her face.

"They're Egyptian. They state that the bearer belongs to something, and as such takes on all of that thing's responsibility and debt. Your brother's have a different name than mine, but they have the same message."

Dean gets it instantly, even if he doesn't want to. It is exactly what he was afraid of. He goes to speak but her head is shaking already and her eyes are closed. He watches as she tightens and loosens her marked hands before she finds the words she wants.

"Time is a free-flowing thing that we try to imprison. We trap it in watches and clocks, give it a face and a meaning as if that could hold it in. You know the concept of eternity Dean, but the meaning? It's ephemeral. Cannot be grasped by human conception. It's just a word with no concrete form and no ultimate definition. Except it is a thing, and it works in a way that can't be ignored. If you could though-" her breath hitches in sharply, "if you could ignore it once you grasped it that would be everything. Except once you know what eternity is you can't escape it. Everything happens in circles, but it's all layered on itself so that what you're experiencing now is happening at the same time as what you went through a year ago and what you'll go through in ten. It's always happening. Always." Her voice breaks and she looks away. "The difference between science and religion in theory circles is that science can be put into practice."

 

\------

 

**Palo Alto, California September 8th, 2002**

 

"So the difference between a scientist and a humanist, other than one being a machine, is that their theory is put into practice and ours is…theoretical."

Sam simply nodded, because at this point he'd realized there was no stopping Clewsky. Plus he was getting a lot of free beer out of it. Definitely way too much.

"That's where my girl comes in. She's on the fast track right? Making this crazy leap to connect Quantum Mechanics with Philosophy, and everybody is buzzing about what she's going to do with it. She's got funding coming at her from all sides, and she's really going to do it. Except then she gets into this car wreck, near death y'know, and her focus changes. Now you don't tell a kid like that no when they want to change focus. Got a damn IQ of 189 or 190, and she's barely old enough to be emancipated, but there she is going for her doctorate and she's gonna remember who snubbed her when she wanted to change dissertation topics. So they hook her up with me to be her advisor because she's coming into our ring and she needs a guide." Sam wonders if a person with an IQ that high would have anything they needed Clewsky to teach them. He keeps his mouth shut and nods when Clewsky pauses. "So I take her in. Turns out she needs to know about Campbell and the damn hero theory. Nobody's doing mythology anymore. I warned her, but she insisted. Everything I could tell her. Everybody that would be able to give her more. She works with me and three of the best damn mythology scholars out there. Then it all gets weird."

This is where Sam's ears really kick in. He's spent a lifetime waiting for that phrase. Listening for it in witness interviews, reading it in reports, and waiting for the moment when the civilian thinks things are strange. If it's that obvious generally they've long since crossed the Rubicon.

"She starts asking about this crazy mix of stuff. Talking to demonologists and paranormal researchers. Next thing we know she's paying off these crazy ladies that claim they're witches. She's two years into her research at this point and nobody's sure where she's going with it, but it's exciting stuff. Way past what we consider interdisciplinary, and into some new universe. Then it comes in and she has to defend it. Which is when we get to read it. The title? This is why I thought of it Sam. 'I Misunderstood the Meaning of Goodbye'." He's grinning like a loon, but there's an odd chill climbing Sam's spine and suddenly he wants to be home with Jess. Wants to be lying in bed with her and considering the classes he's going to be hungover in tomorrow and the test he has at the end of the week. He's so much more responsible than this, and he can't remember why he stayed and listened to Clewsky's crazy bullshit. He's gotta tell him he needs to leave. That he needs to get some rest. Dean would have the perfect way to say it, but Sam can't channel Dean the way he used to. Instead his brother is this presence in the back of his head that occasionally reminds Sam the many different ways he abandoned the family.

"Nobody wants to ask her what it means because the damn thing is so far beyond what any of them are capable of, and they're all ashamed to admit it. Shortest dissertation defense I've ever seen. When it's over she walks out with a doctorate and a thousand options. She picks a pretty good school, but not any of the ones she should have gone with, and then she settles down there. But not like, _there_ there, outside the city. Gets some crazy big piece of property with the university's sign-up incentive and starts living isolated while she's working. Then she demands this sabbatical, and shortly afterwards she comes back all wrong. Nobody can explain it, but I asked her once. Know what she said to me?"

"What?" Sam croaks it out while draining the last of his beer. He's going to leave any second. Just listen to the punchline and then take his leave. Clewsky isn't teaching him anymore, and he can't lower Sam's grade for being uninterested in academic gossip and fable.

"She said that she'd found a way to practice her theory. That she'd gotten empirical data. Damn crazy right? Except she was so different then. So damn different it was scary really. She'd been this bright-eyed little genius and suddenly she was like a pod person."

Sam finds his feet and stumbles his way up. "I gotta go Professor." He nods in Clewsky's direction and then stumbles away. All he has to do is find a cab. It's not a case, and if it was Sam wouldn't do anything about it. He's not a hunter anymore, and he hasn't spoken to Dean in over a year. He's not allowed to come back. Dean doesn't want him to come back. They never talked about it, but they both know he left because of Union Springs.

 

\-------

 

**Eaton, Colorado  May 5 th, 2008**

"Then I made a mistake in Union Springs, Alabama, and that's why I left."

Her eyes are distant, dreamy, and she rocks gently in the porch swing beside him. He can see the way her scarred fingers drag through the air, and it hurts to look at them because if she gives him the secret that will be him. Owned and marked appropriately. That's Sam's destiny if he follows this plan. Except how is that any different from now?

"But he definitely knows how you feel? There's no question he knows you love him like that?"

Sam looks away, over the sprawling lawn and into the distance where mountain ridges are outlined in clear air. No wonder she doesn't want to live in the city. Boulder has nothing on this, and Sam wonders how beautiful the stars are. He fell into a sleep so deep last night that he can't recall the transition, and when he woke up the sun had already risen. Dean would love it out here.

"No question." Which isn't necessarily true, but Sam gets the feeling she's just filling time. Dean could think a million things about that hot afternoon in July, or he could think nothing at all. It's impossible to know the difference with Dean. It's taken Sam years to figure out that what he sees of his brother is only partially interpretation on Sam's part and mostly show on Dean's. It was a difficult lesson.

"I've never wondered a single moment as to whether or not I made the right choice. I only wonder if the price wasn't a bit more than I could bear. You understand that if you do this your life as you know it now is over?"

"If I don't it's just as done. I can't live without Dean. I won't."

Her lips purse thoughtfully as she stares out at the landscape. "Then we'd better start teaching you. There's not a lot of time left."

It begins with sigils. She warns him that to even understand the theory of it he'll have to know the language. He's getting calls from Dean daily, and he keeps answering them as best he can. That he'll be back soon. That he just needed a little time to research one or two more possibilities. Dean's anger is mitigated by something that sounds suspiciously like hope, and Sam is going to hate crushing that. Still, he knows there's no way to sell this idea to Dean that his brother will accept. Sam needs Dean to be willing and pliant, and that's going to require some deception.

It only takes him two days to memorize each of the marks he has to carve into his hands, and then the responding sigils he'll use to open the gate into Hell. Once that's done she starts with the theory, and that's where Sam has trouble. He tries to follow all of it, but it's become obvious the more time he spends with her that she's not entirely connected to the process of teaching him. He has to remind her what lesson they're on, how long he's been there, and most importantly sometimes he has to remind her who he is. One morning he enters the kitchen and she drops her coffee cup and starts screaming. It takes him fifteen minutes to get her to quiet down, and even then she spends the rest of the day shaky and unsure about what they're supposed to be doing. He remembers Clewsky telling him her IQ level was way beyond the borderline genius level, and it's hard to remember sometimes from the way she drifts off, or the wounded little girl look she gets sometimes when Sam gets frustrated. He tries to stay even and calm.

The worst part is the thought that if she's been this affected what will happen to Sam? Will he even have a mind when this is over? She can't tell him how she got back to herself, just that she was led there by the hunter she went to retrieve. When she talks about him her throat works vigorously and her hands shake. Seeing her like that kind of scares the shit out of Sam, and he fixes Dean's face firmly in his mind whenever the fear comes on. She leads him through the steps, but it's when she gets to the first one that he stops her. She's explained what will happen when he crosses over, and how he'll open the door, but this part is new.

"Dean will never go for that. I told you about Union Springs. There's no way."

She doesn't look over at him, focuses on the papers she's been drawing sigils on. "Drug him or convince him. Those are your two options."

"What did you do?"

"I got him drunk. Got naked. Let his penis do the rest." Her fingers cover her eyes for a second and then she looks through them at Sam. There's nothing coy about it, and he gets the feeling she's not trying to hide herself so much as figure out a way of looking at Sam that will make him make sense.

"I don't think there's a way to get Dean that drunk. He has a fairly high tolerance level."

"You'd be surprised what the right amount of alcohol can do. Although too much and the whole thing becomes kind of pointless. There's always roofies. I mean you're lying about some pretty intense stuff, so drugging might not be too much further over the line. I'm not the best judge of morality."

Sam's surprised when he laughs, and even more surprised when she joins in. They sit that way for a while, the sunlight wrapped around them and the purpose of their meeting almost forgotten. Then her face hardens and the laughter is all gone.

"You have to do this right. I'm counting on you to do this right."

"Will it matter for you if I don't?"

She studies him for a long time. "I'm teaching you the most insanely effective and damning method of suicide humanly imaginable. There's a lot of responsibility attached to that."

"And afterwards? What happens afterwards?"

There's a moment where he thinks she won't answer. Then her lips go slack and she looks off into some distance Sam can't even imagine. "Dean will have to do the heavy lifting afterwards. You'll need to leave him clues on how to get here. I don't know how you'll do that."

"I'll figure it out. I always do. So after the bonding part then I wait for the hellhounds to take him, cut my hands, open the gate and descend. Then what?"

"Then you stop bargaining for Dean's life and start demanding it."

Sam follows her upstairs to the bedroom she uses as a distance learning classroom and watches as she begins to draw diagrams on the dry-erase board. Dean has made fun of him for the college thing more than once, but being here isn't like those days at Stanford. Doesn't really remind him of his time as a student, or the short period of time in which he'd talked himself into believing he could live without Dean. That he could escape the life. As most things do it reminds him of Dean. Dean sitting across from him countless nights while Dad was out doing one thing or another and lecturing him on the most insane shit anyone could have hopes to learn in a classroom. He remembers the way Dean's face would get studious. How strange it was to see the green eyes he usually connected to affection or merriment looking so sober and adult. Dean had been a great teacher, and for a little while when Sam was a teenager he'd really thought that was what Dean should be. That if he could get Dean to come with him maybe he could talk his brother into using his G.E.D. for something, or maybe going back for a real diploma.

It wasn't like he pictured some weird sitcom, but the image of him and Dean in some crappy little apartment looking out at the ocean from a porch with two beers… It was a dream Sam had indulged in too much leading up to that horrible day in Union Springs. It was Sam's secret comfort when things were really bad, when he'd sit up at night waiting in terror and thinking about the possibilities of injury and death. He'd imagine coming home from classes to see Dean staring angrily at some textbook. Claiming he didn't understand when Sam knew damn well Dean got every fucking word of it he just hated being told what he thought was inconsequential by stodgy old establishment members. It'd been the argument every year of Dean's high school experience. Why he needed to learn algorithms and sentence construction when there were monsters out there.

Which, in hindsight, should have been Sam's first clue that his dream was faulty. Dean didn't want to be that person, because he didn't think that learning those things and giving himself a good job and a safe life was as important as saving people. There was a time Sam thought he'd never understand his brother,  but the last two years of hunting without Dad always around to remind Sam of his faults had taught Sam a fairly important lesson. Dean, as he so often was, was right. There was nothing quite as satisfying as saving a life, or giving a family justice. When he'd handed that little girl off to her mom, dripping wet and terrified but alive, Sam had understood. Everything else came second.

\-------

 

**Union Springs, Alabama July 10 th, 1999**

Every thing else came second to the sensation of Dean holding him. To the feeling of lips in his hair and strong hands soothing circles into his back. Sam leaned into it, soaked it up, and waited for the other shoe to drop. Any minute now Dean was going to crack a joke about Sam being a girl, shut down and disengage, and Sam just didn't want it to happen this time. Didn't want to be parted from Dean, because this was as close as he could get these days. When they were little it was all about physical touch. They shared a bed all the time, Dean was always holding his hand to lead him places or ruffling his hair. The problem started when Sam realized he wanted Dean's touch to last a little longer. Wanted Dean to keep touching, and in more places, be more than just the affectionate sibling. The first time Sam achieved an erection thinking about his older brother was the end of his allowing Dean to touch him. He'd started to pull back, to jerk away and practically hiss at the contact, and Dean had taken the hint and stopped.

Now though, now Sam was getting full body contact and it amazed him how badly he wanted it. How much he had missed it. He soaked in Dean's warmth, and then realized Dean was still talking to him.

"Not gonna die on you Sammy. Always come back so stop crying." But Dean can't promise that and Sam knows it. Knows it and can't stand the idea of having to give this up. Having to say goodbye to the one thing he's always wanted. He could run away tomorrow really, if he wanted to, and probably figure out a way to finish high school and go to college without Dad and Dean. He's worked out the particulars of it more than once. Hire some homeless guy if he needs a father. He's more than adequate when it comes to forging and funding himself. None of that changes the sudden stark reality of never seeing Dean again. Which is when Sam's mouth gets away from him.

"Come with me. Dean come with me. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to watch you getting hurt like you're supposed to die for strangers. Come with me."

There's silence for a bit, and then Dean's grip tightens almost painfully. "What? What the hell you talkin' 'bout Sammy?"

He's started, and he can't seem to stop. "I'll finish high school. Go to college. Somewhere nice and we'll get an apartment. You don't need to do this anymore Dean. You can do other things. Anything. You're smart and I'm smart and we can do this. Just come away with me. Just come away."

Dean pushes him back a bit so he can look at his face. Sam winces when he sees the damage, but Dean doesn't seem interested in that at all. "Sam what the hell man? Are you seriously suggesting that we run off? What about Dad? What about all those civilian lives man? We have a job to do." He doesn't look as angry as Sam always suspected he would be, but he does look hurt. More emotionally than physically, and that pulls at Sam like he never thought it could.

"They're not worth you dying Dean. Not worth giving you up. I can't do it, and you can't expect me to. Please Dean. _Please_." He knows he's pushing it. That pulling out the puppy dog eyes Dean makes fun of him for is a step too far, but he tries it.

"Then what Sammy? What's the end game here, because man I don't understand it. You wanna abandon Dad and the life? Why do you need me for that?" He growls it bitterly, and Sam figures he's already done too much. May as well throw in all his chips and go for broke. So he leans in and kisses Dean.

It's not how imagined it. Dean tastes like liquor and blood, with an undercurrent of desperation Sam wasn't expecting. He also wasn't expecting the lips to soften, to part, and then he's sliding his tongue inside and really tasting Dean for the first time while he fists Dean's shirt and holds on. Dean's responding though. Kissing back and there's desperation on both their parts as they eat away at each other's mouths. He can feel Dean hardening underneath him, but when Sam shifts to thrust against Dean, to show he feels the same way, that's when the bubble pops. Suddenly Sam's on the floor and Dean's standing, wiping blood and spit from his mouth as he looks anywhere but at Sam.

"This is-oh fuck Sam I'm sorry. Mistake. This is a mistake." Dean takes a shaky step backwards and looks around the room. He huffs out one mirthless laugh and then lowers his eyes and hides from Sam's gaze. "You're confused Sammy, and I'm drunk. Let's put this one in the 'forget it' pile and just move on ok?"

Two days later Dean's on a "Five States in Five Days" trip, and Sam's hunting a banshee with Dad in Florida. He uses the downtime while Dad's resting to start applying for scholarships and colleges.


	3. Chapter 3

**Eaton, Colorado  October 2 nd, 2008**

"Sam fought for scholarships and went to college because he couldn't stand the idea of losing you. He thought if he could put distance between you then he'd be able to handle it when he got the call that you were gone. Which was a desperation move if I've ever seen one, because I can promise you he never would have gotten over it. Please don't, we're having a perfectly civil conversation." It takes Dean a whole ten seconds to figure out she's talking to someone standing behind him instead of just not being able to meet his eyes. He weighed his options as a friendly Midwestern voice spoke at his back.

"I'm gonna take that gun out of your pants friend, and then you're going to stand up and sit next to your brother. You twitch though, and I fill him full of buckshot." Dean keeps his eyes on her face in an attempt to remain civil, but the urge to attack before he can put Sam in danger is pretty fucking overwhelming.

"I don't think that's necessary. Doc is right after all. Civil conversation."

There's a laugh from behind him, shockingly real, and then a hand brushes up his shirt and removes his gun smoothly and easily. "Winchesters don't have civil conversations. How you doing babe?"

Her eyes move to Dean's face then. "I am perfectly fine. I wish you wouldn't threaten Sam."

"I wish you wouldn't add to the reasons the demons are out to kill you. I wish you'd, just once you know, make a decision with that big old brain of yours. Instead every time I come back here you've made some new crazy mistake."

Dean watches all expression leave her face, watches her eyes slip shut, and then she leans back in the armchair and rubs at her temples. "Then stop coming back. In the meantime I'm going to tell Dean what I told his brother, and then you can go over your miracle cure. Get us some beer and put the gun down."

There's a second where Dean's sure the cold metal of a shotgun is going to brush him, and he's prepared to try a disarming technique, but it never comes. Instead there's a whisper of sound and then a man almost as tall as Sam walks past him. From here Dean can see that he's lanky like Sam, and that his hair is short, bristly, and bright blonde. He's wearing jeans and a flannel that suggest he's never been comfortable anywhere that doesn't serve chicken tenders. Dean's kind of guy really. If he wasn't threatening Sam a few moments ago.

"You still drinking that Canadian bullshit, or did you finally buy something American?"

"Shut up." Her face is still expressionless, but her voice carries a hint of affection that surprises Dean. When she finally looks at him again there's confusion in her gaze. "Are you one of Nate's hunter friends? He rarely brings anyone here. He must really like you."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Her face pales a bit and she leans back from him. "I-I'm not sure-"

Nate comes back in then, three beers in his hand and a soft look on his face. "Yeah you gotta get some Coors or something babe. This is ridiculous." He sees the look on her face and drops all three bottles onto the coffee table before kneeling in front of her.

"Too many people for you to keep track of huh Sadie? It's ok. It's October. 2008. That's Dean Winchester, and you taught his brother how to go to Hell. Remember?"

That look of confusion deepens for a second, and then she shows the most life she has since Dean arrived. Her cheeks flush red, and her eyes go to the floor even though Nate's holding her face steady so he can study her.

"I got lost. Sorry." She sounds like a little girl in that moment, and Dean's eyes stray to Sam. How long has she been back exactly, and how hard has it been to get her here? How long will it take Sam? He can't go on hunts like that. Can't question victims or check out leads, because who knows when he'll lose track of whatever it is he's supposed to be doing, or when it is. It's not hard for Dean to guess that only the other hunter's presence keeps her from panicking. What would happen if Sam got lost like that without him?

"It's ok babe. Happens. I see you made pie. Did you think it was Tuesday?"

Sadie's head is shaking before her lips start moving. "We don't do Tuesdays anymore. Not in years. You hunt and I teach now. It's 2008. That's Dean Winchester and I'm helping him figure out what happened to his brother because I helped break him. Take a seat because you have to cover the fixing part."

Nate sits beside her on the floor and puts one hand on her knee as he studies Dean. "She do the reveal yet, or is she still wandering around the story?"

Dean's almost amused, but he looks to Sam and that dies pretty quickly. Instead he grips his hands between his knees and leans towards them. "It's all Tarantino here. You got a way to focus her?"

There's silence as light blue eyes take him in and Dean takes this chance to really look the guy over. To see the heavy ring of scars on his throat as if it had been ripped out. He thinks of his own chest, and wonders how hard it was for her to see that. How hard it was for Sam to see him. Then Nate turns to her and strokes her hair. There's a hesitance in his hand, a kind of slow wonder, and Dean has to ask himself for the third or fourth time just how deep in it he and Sam really are. How long the road out is going to be.

"Sadie. Tell Dean about your dissertation and your research. How you put theory into practice. Remember?"

 

\-------

 

**Cambridge, Massachusetts December 22 nd, 2001**

 

She remembers that she's supposed to sleep, but it's hard to make that take a back seat to what's taking shape in front of her. The computer has been running for hours now, and her fingers are sore, but she's pretty sure that if she goes just a little bit longer she can finish. If she finishes…

She's honestly surprised that her dissertation director didn't laugh at her. They were so excited about the Quantum Mechanics thing, and eventually she'll tell them she finished it already, and they can read it whenever they want. Harvard has strict non-spoken policies on its students not letting them down, and she's been teaching three courses ABD while working on her dissertation and that. Sadie doesn't really remember what sleep is like. She has nine messages on her machine from Nate, and if she doesn't call him back soon he'll just show up. He always does. It's not his fault that she understands now the difference between what used to be mythology and reality, but he's been pretty hard on himself about it.

Sadie doesn't have delusions about herself. Since she was nine and they first tested her everything has been on a singular track. The only outlier in her damn life has been Nate. He's the only one who never saw her as the little prodigal, and he's the only one who has worked to make her be human. Geniuses, she knows from studies, walk a very thin line between psychosis and sanity. They have trouble making personal connections, sustaining relationships, keeping track of day to day life. It's a tale as old as time, and she'll admit that if there isn't someone there to remind her every now and then to eat or sleep she'll go days without. Which is why she's only half-surprised when a heavy hand lands on her shoulder.

"You haven't been answering my calls babe."

The words blinking in front of her are pretty damning, but he still thinks she's working with the difficult mesh of physics, philosophy, and string theory and he won't read them. "Sorry. Got kinda lost in it. You know how I am."

His touch. His touch is stable and grounding, and she wants to lean into it but she's not supposed to. He's told her more than once that he can't be with her that way because of his work. She argued that maybe he should let that be her decision, but that resulted in a car crash and the mess they're in now. They don't have that kind of time anymore. Time has been on her mind a good deal. She's not sure how time will work once she's down there, or what she'll do when her time is up. She knows what she's going to do when his time is up though.

"How long since you ate?" He's already heading across the loft and to the fridge. She hears him digging around in the fridge, hears him make a thick noise, and then his head is popping back up over the door while she saves the word file and pushes away from her desk. "Babe this Chinese food is so out of date it's growling. You got any real food around here?"

Does she? She's pretty sure she picked up peanut butter and some bread a day or two ago, but with the way her mind has been working she has no way to be certain about that. When he finds the moldy bread she checks her calendar and realizes that it's been over a week since her last grocery run. Sadie remembers that she went the last day of classes. She has to rub her face for a second and try to remember when the Chinese food is from. "How about pizza Nate? There's a place a couple blocks away, and the menu is on the fridge door."

She watches him place the call, and then slips off to shower and change clothes. She's just figured out the sigils, and if she can find the right combination of herbs then she'll be able to open the door. There's a hand on her shoulder and she jumps when she realizes the water is cold and Nate is standing there with his eyes diverted. He's touching her again. "What happened?"

"Pizza is here. You've been showering for an hour. Water's cold babe." There's a tight smile on his face and she waits for him to leave before toweling off and changing into clean clothes. When she comes out he's staring at a book she has open, and there's a tense moment where she's not sure if he'll figure it out. "This don't look like physics."

"It's not. Side project for a fellow scholar. I promised I'd get it done soon." She remembers the calendar. He has one year, six months, and twenty-three days. She goes up for her defense in a week. She has to pick a school that will allow her to take sabbatical shortly after starting there, and that means the Ivy League is right out. They'll be impressed by her C.V., but that doesn't change the fact that she'll need to prove herself as a professor. She can shoot high enough to be able to afford the kind of place she'll need for the ritual, but still pick an institution that will be so impressed they'll give her extra leeway. Her list of potentials has been narrowed down to six, and Boulder is looking promising. There's an old farm there with a well that may have the kind of energy she needs. There's just not enough time. "I like the pepperoni and mushrooms."

His grin is broad and easy, and he holds out a plate with three slices of it even as he chews on a mouthful of whatever mess he's ordered for himself. "You got a pizza place this good nearby and you're eating cold Chinese? I always thought you were kind of stupid."

It's his oldest joke, and she loves it more than any other he tells. Sadie laughs and then starts eating her own. Turns out she was hungry. "Yes. I hear that all the time. How are the hunts going?"

Nate's grin falters. "Dad's in the hospital about thirty miles away. Witch did serious damage to his internal organs. They're doing a lot of tests."

Sadie can't help but glance at the book, and then she focuses on him. "He sent you here so you wouldn't hover? He always hated when you hovered."

"Well he won't have to put up with it much longer." All traces of a good mood are eradicated, and she's not sure if he's hinting that his father is dying, or mentioning his own upcoming death.

"This is where we get drunk right? I'm fairly certain normal people get drunk over this sort of thing." His smile comes back, faltering but there, and she's willing to do anything to keep it. More importantly this may be her last chance to do the first step. She has the incense, and she remembers the words. That's all it's going to take really. She makes him go to the corner store and get the liquor, because she's got a few more pages to write before it's done and that's the best excuse she can come up with. It's true, so he doesn't call her out on the lie. The prep work is minimal. She carves the sigils into the box spring, and then places the incense and anoints herself with the oils. She's had sex before once with a fellow academic at a conference. She remembers the logistics of it.

When he comes back she makes sure that he is drinking more than her, talking as much as she can get him to, and waits for the moment when he's so drunk he's having a hard time paying attention to everything that's going on. He's still aware enough though. "You gotta take care of yourself little girl. Them Harvard boys don't make you be careful." When he's like this he loses all pretenses at not having an accent. Becomes the boy from the small Oklahoman town that she grew up with. She likes it that way.

She stands up slowly and then reaches for the hem of her shirt. "Nate." His eyes catch hers, and then go wide. This is how she remembers it working on television shows. "Nate let's have sexual relations."

He starts laughing, and that makes her hands hesitate. Then she bites her lip and pulls the shirt over her head. His laughter dies. She's not wearing a bra, and the pants she's pulled on have nothing underneath. This is all it takes right? He stares through slightly glazed eyes and then shakes his head.

"Babe. Sadie. We talked 'bout this."

She unbuttons her pants and drops them. Steps closer and keeps his gaze. "I'd like very much to do this. I think it will help you feel better. It will be pleasurable for me as well."

Nate swallows hard and reaches for her before pulling back. "Wait. Wait a sec and let's talk 'bout this 'cause-babe I can't be-ah shit." She sees the moment he gives up. Nate lifts her over his shoulder and then carries her into the bedroom and drops her onto the bed.

"There's incense there. Will you light it? I like the smell." He does, one hand lighting while the other works the button on his jeans. Then he's back in the bed, and he's a big solid wall of muscle and heat. It's hard to focus, hard to keep track, but right after he enters her she whispers in his ear.

"What does that mean?" He moans it out and bites his lip before pulling back.

"It means I love you. I have loved you all this time. You are the only thing I have ever loved."

His eyes clear for half a second, and then there's a softening in his face that makes her feel a flutter in her stomach unconnected to the building spell energies he's too distracted and drunk to feel. He murmurs the words back, and that's just brilliant. That works fine. So she lets herself go and the rest of it is better than she ever imagined.

When she wakes up in the morning he's still there, and she wraps herself in an extra blanket and turns up the clanky heater before settling down in front of the computer. She'll finish this. Step one is complete, and now all she has to do is wait. Which may be the hardest part.

 

\-------

 

**Eaton, Colorado  May 8 th, 2008**

 

The hardest part is knowing when to leave. A part of Sam wants to talk Dean into coming here. He knows the veil is thin enough that she was able to pierce it once, and she'll know if something is going wrong. He wants very badly for her to be there and to watch everything, because there's only one shot at this. He thinks he has it all down, hasn't had a problem repeating it to her, but that's not a sure thing. Nothing is a sure thing. She's sitting across from him at the table and mechanically chewing a sandwich he knows for a fact she's been working on for over an hour. He reaches out and stops her hand before she bites the sandwich again.

"Sadie. What's the price?"

She looks up from her hand to his face, and as so often happens she can't hold his gaze for very long. "Isn't it obvious? I thought it was obvious." There's suddenly less color to her. "I've never been very good at knowing what is obvious."

"It's ok. I'm not upset. Just-other than what I promise them. What's the price?" He thinks he knows, but he needs to hear her say it.

"Dean will have to figure out how to bring you back to yourself. Anchor you in one time and place. It's not easy and it won't be permanent, but it can be done. Once that's past it will take time for you to remember how to properly take care of yourself again. You forget how important it is to do things. You need a schedule. There has to be a schedule. Then there's the loss of sensation. Things don't really have tastes the way they used to, and pleasure isn't…well as far as I can tell it takes a while to come back." Sadie eyes her sandwich and then puts it down completely. "You'll feel numb at first, and then you'll be overwhelmed, and then it will be both at once. There's no getting past that part. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head."

As if that wasn't enough. As if he needed more. Then her body jerks. "Constipation. There's a lot of that. I suggest investing in fiber."

He can't help it. Sam starts laughing and he can't stop. She looks at him sympathetically. When the spasms subside and he can breathe again he rubs the tears from his eyes and puts his head down. "You make it all so clinical. We're talking about the craziest shit and it's like you're teaching me a book or an equation."

Sadie's hand strokes his hair hesitantly, and then she pulls back and grips her hands together. "That is a surprisingly accurate description of what is happening here. Sam, this isn't the kind of thing that you can just do and walk away from. What we're talking about here-the chances of a mistake are tremendous. I spent years studying every aspect of this, and breaking it down until it was an approachable thing. I did all of that under the nose of several very prominent organizations that were funding me to research something else entirely. So if you're asking me if I'm worried you'll suffer more damage in the cognitive function area the answer is yes. I'm a genius Sam. Have been for a very long time." There's nothing pretentious or proud in her statement. It's delivered wearily, and she keeps her head down as if she's almost ashamed. "On the other hand I'm functionally retarded when it comes to social interaction and emotions. So on that count I have a feeling you'll put my healing process to shame. It's all about context you know. Hey what day is it?"

"It's Tuesday. Why?"

"Nate's coming, or at least he should be. I should bake."

Sam watches her scurry off, and wonders if she's honestly capable of giving him any advice outside of her theory.

 

\--------

 

**Eaton, Colorado  October 2nd, 2008**

 

"A theory? You taught my brother a damn theory?"

Sadie's head ducks down and her hands cover her mouth carefully. "Technically in science everything is a theory because-"

"Don't give me that bullshit! You knew he might fuck it up and you gave it to him anyway! He could have-fuck Sammy doesn't understand when he shouldn't do things, and you just handed this to him. All it took was some sob story and puppy eyes. This is dangerous shit lady and you just told him how to-"

"Ok that's enough. Take a breather babe. Let me talk to Dean alone in the kitchen okay?" Which is when Dean really takes her in. She's looking more like Sam with every second, and she nods her head and hunches into herself when Nate pushes himself up and leads Dean out of the room. They end up in the kitchen and the other hunter digs out more beer and hands one to Dean. "Don't ever yell at her again. Got me?"

He still sounds friendly, but the tension in him suggests that he's so on edge it's really just a matter of seconds before he launches at Dean and goes after him.

"You don't understand. You can't-"

"Before we started hunting the supernatural my dad and her dad were real good friends. I was older than her, and I knew her vaguely. Always kinda weird, quiet, didn't talk to a lot of people. She tested out of all these grades. Ended up in high school at the tender age of ten and everybody knew who she was. Knew she was some kind of genius. Her dad talked to my dad, and I got pulled aside and asked to watch over her. Well fuck that I thought, because I was a sophomore and I'd be damned if she was gonna kill my carefully built rep. So the first day I tell her that I got other stuff to do and you know what she says? 'Ok Nathan. I'll be quiet.' Wanders off and I don't see her again 'til the end of the day. Bumped into some older girl and spilled her drink, so this girl starts shouting at her about feeling froggy and wanting to jump." He cracks open his beer and takes a long swallow. "So she jumped. 'Cause she didn't know a damn thing about any of that stuff. Girl thought she was being funny and she and her friends beat the snot out of her. So I pick her up to walk her home and there she is with blood still crusted around her mouth and this lost look on her face. 'What the hell happened' I asked her, and then she said-" He stops and his adam's apple jumps before he takes another gulp of beer. "She told me the story all factual and calm, and then she looks me in the eye and says 'I wasn't supposed to actually jump was I?'"

Dean wants to laugh and cry at the same time. He remembers Sammy being bullied. Remembers the hopeless fury he had, and all the little kids he half-strangled in an effort to keep anyone from even looking askance at his little brother. He nods once and Nate takes it for what it is.

"I rarely let her out of my sight after that. Kept an eye on her all the time, and then senior year my aunt is killed by a Wendigo, and off we go from hunting deer to hunting monsters. I had all the training, just not the focus. I never told her what it was I was really doing 'til I got her killed. Then when she figured it out I had to explain, and she took it all in real quiet and then nodded once and insisted she'd figure something out. I know how it went with you. I can tell you like it was yesterday 'cause I remember how it went with me. You went to face your death like a man, because that's how we were taught it's done. Sam insisted on being there, and then the hellhounds came. The pain is like nothing you ever felt before, and the worst part is you can hear him over the sound of their growling and that choking stench of rotting flesh and sulfur. You can hear him screaming for you, 'cause he knew it was coming but that don't really prepare you for it. Then the light's fading, and you know where you're going, and there he is over you and his eyes are all anguish and regret, but there's determination there. You think to yourself that ain't right, because every time you see determination in those eyes it's right before he does something that proves he ain't half as smart as everybody says he is. So you wanna ask but it's too late and you're dying, and then you hear these words and they mean something, something you heard once before when you were in a whole other version of intimate and close, and then you're gone. But it's only for a few moments, and the next thing you know-"

 

\------

 

**Monks Mound, Cahokia Mounds State Park,  Indiana  June 3 rd, 2008**

 

The next thing he knows is pain. All of his joints are screaming, and his eyes feel like they've been rubbed with sand and sulfur. Blinking sets off a sensation of agony so intense that Dean wonders if he should stop doing it, and then he turns his head towards the sound that woke him. If this is Hell, then the powers-that-be fucked up because Dean has always loved the outdoors. The woman crouching in front of him looks concerned, and her outfit indicates she is a park ranger. A park ranger? He tries to figure out how that would work into a torture scheme and nothing comes to mind. Ruby told him it was like _Hellraiser_ but without all the bondage leather, but this doesn't look anything like that. It looks like a park, and the soft grass underneath as well as the breathtaking view he can see behind the uniformed woman suggests the same thing. The air is clear and warming up rapidly, and the park ranger is reaching out very slowly like she's going to poke Dean but she's worried he'll bite.

He waits, lies perfectly still, and when her fingers connect with his he reaches up despite the screaming of his muscles and grips her wrist as tightly as he can, fingertips searching. When he finds a pulse all the tension goes out of him, and he lets his head bounce against the soft grass when he lets go of her skin. He wants to cry or scream, but he's not sure either response is appropriate and they may be tricking him. This may still be Hell, but he's pretty sure it isn't. Somehow, instinctively, Dean knows Sam got him out. Sammy figured out some ritual or spell, and now here Dean is on a grass hill in some state, and Sam will come collect him when he figures out what happened. Which brings up a whole new universe of questions including where he is and when it is. How long did it take Sam? Why doesn't Dean remember Hell? He fights the agony of his throat and manages to harshly grind out, "When?"

Her eyes are inquisitive, green, and she looks over her shoulder before refocusing on him. "June 3rd, 2008 sir. You've been scaring the tourists all morning. Were you drinking or were you attacked?"

Most mornings Dean could say yes to both, but he swallows against the dry ache in his throat and manages another word. "Attack." Scaring the tourists? When he looks down he realizes his clothes are tattered and torn, and covered in blood. His blood. No wonder they were all so scared. That would be enough, but suddenly his foggy and ruined brain picks up on what she said. June 3rd. Dean was only in Hell a day. What the fuck did Sam do?

"Sir? I need you to focus. The ambulance is on its way, but is that the man that attacked you?"

He tries to turn his head, but the pain is too much. Too much and Dean doesn't want to experience it. Doesn't want to fight against the ground glass making its way through his system. He does it anyway though, because what if it's a demon she's pointing at. Some leftover that followed him out of Hell, and will pop up at any second and rip through her and whatever terrified tourists are standing in the distance no doubt rubber-necking. What he'll do about it is beyond him, but he'll certainly try. He pushes against the knotted and screaming muscles, and then he sees it and the painful slamming of his heart triples and screams at him to calm down before it explodes in his chest. It's not a demon. It's Sam.

What the fuck did Sam do? His hands are dipped in blood, and there's a knife beside him that glints in the light and screams with red. Sam's face is ashen, and his eyes are open but unseeing. There's a brief moment where Dean is back in Cold Oaks, back in that muddy street, but Sam's chest is moving and Dean knows he's breathing. His brother is breathing. He reaches out one shaky hand and actually screams with the pain as he grips the ground and starts dragging himself. He hears the park ranger telling him no, trying to stop him, but she's afraid to touch and Dean's probably a pretty scary sight. He grips handful after handful of the warm earth, smells the richness of the soil and the fresh scent of grass, and then reaches Sam after an eternity of crawling. His brother is still staring at nothing.

He can't get the leverage necessary to really check Sam over, but he finds a way to lift Sam's hands and see that the blood is Sam's. All Sam's as far as he can tell, and then he's crying over his brother's mutilated hands as every cell in his body rebels. Dean just manages to turn his head away before he vomits, and then the park ranger is overcoming her fear, and she and a guy in a Hawaiian shirt are pulling him back despite his growling and screaming. They let him ride in the ambulance with Sam, let him stick close, and Dean can't formulate words anymore but he tries to make noises to let Sam know he's there. That whatever stupid fucking thing Sam's done Dean is still here and he's not leaving. The EMTs rattle off conditions and issues in the background. Multiple lacerations, shock, blood loss, and all of it plays like a soundtrack for their lives.

They're split at the doors to the ER, and Dean can only make these animalistic grunts as they roll him down the hall and Sam disappears around the corner. There are doctors and nurses swarming him, and he can't focus on what they're saying because all he sees is blood. All he hears is the shallow sound of Sam breathing. What did Sam do? He remembers his last seconds, Sam crouched over him and weeping as Dean fades away. Sam's eyes so determined, and Dean knows the look. Sam has a plan, and that never ends well. He wanted to tell his brother goodbye, and that he loved him. That all those years ago, what happened to split them, it wasn't just Sam. Was never just Sam. That last night in Pennsylvania when they'd been together was the highlight of Dean's crazy fucking life. The culmination of years of fear and need, and he'd played it off but that was all he wanted. All he thought of. He had planned on holding it close, making it the last of his anchors, and when he was in Hell he'd let it keep him human. He would _stay human_.

Except there was no Hell. No fire and no chains, just waking up to Sam bleeding in the grass and all this pain and despair. Dean wants to explain to Sam that the fire would be preferable. That he'd rather suffer than see Sam like that. There's no way to do it though. It takes two weeks for Dean to be able to formulate full sentences, another week after that to be able to walk, and then one more to get Sam out of the hospital. They're already in July when he sneaks Sam out in a wheelchair and hightails it back to the Cahokia Mounds State Park. He finds where Sam parked the Impala and starts her up, and then heads for a motel. Sam can't function properly. Has to be reminded to eat and move, and for a little while Dean has to work with Sam soiling himself, Sam falling down, Sam waking up and screaming like someone is carving him open and apart.

There are notes in Sam's journal, and receipts from his little trip away from Dean. He pieces it together slowly, always distracted by the shambling corpse his brother has become. Still, there's a promise of better because he can find out what Sam did. Find it out and fix it. There's no world in which Dean can't fix Sam. He won't allow it. So Dean works, and eventually he finds Sadie McCullough, and the long story of her rise to academic glory and her strange fall. He tracks her down, and once he has a destination he shoots towards it. The whole time he talks to Sam. Talks about the past, their future, and what he's going to do when Sam comes back. How he's going to beat him until he can't stand or walk again. How he's going to taste every inch of Sam's body and memorize every line and mark. There are new scars on Dean, thick furrows along his chest where the hellhounds ripped him apart. He wonders aloud if Sam will avoid them, or if he'll touch them and wonder at the whole thing. Sam's always been a tactile kid, and Dean's always appreciated that.

Most importantly he tells Sam that he's going to make it alright. Because it has to be alright.


	4. Chapter 4

**Eaton, Colorado  August 1st, 2003**

 

It's alright. He's dead, but it's alright. Nate's dead and now things have to start moving. She couldn't sense the hellhounds the way he could but she could hear them. Could see the damage to his throat appear suddenly like a magician's trick. She wonders briefly about lightwaves and frequencies, the logistics of a thing that can be heard but not seen, and then she realizes she's spent twenty minutes dragging her best friend's body across the grass into the field behind her house and on the way to the well. He's big, and her back hurts a bit, but they're almost there. Best is sort of a misnomer for him, because actually he's her only friend. The only person in the world she really cares about at all and now he's dead and she's dragging his cooling corpse. This is probably not mentally healthy. Not that's she's worried about-

She picks the knife up and handles it carefully as she looks at him. This is all going according to plan, which means any second now some variable could screw it all up. The sky is stormy looking, and if it starts to rain all her carefully chalked lines will be ruined. She makes sure again that he's in the center of the circle, that everything is in order, and then she begins to cut. It takes a long time to carve the symbols, and her left hand slips in blood when she begins to work on the right. There's pain, but she's ready for that really. Glad for it because the endorphins produced sharpen her senses and keep her mind working at a steady clip. There's no question that this could all work against her, and she makes sure it's all in place before she puts the knife down and kneels beside the circle. This is it. The last step. If she had any question now is the moment where she can't take it back. She looks again to his face, chin carved ruggedly and high cheekbones, closed eyes she knows are a shade of blue found in Hydrangeas planted in soil with the proper aluminum sulfate content. Gaping hole where his esophagus and trachea used to be.

Sadie can count on one hand the number of times she's regretted meeting him, and have fingers left over. She's still young, and logically if she'd try harder she might meet someone who would love her the way she wants to be loved. Who she would love back. Logically there is a lifetime to form connections with people who do not devote their lives to being killed by monsters. This one time though it isn't about logic. It isn't about reasoning out the pieces of what should be and what is, or debating the finer points of a perception based reality. This one time it is all about the heart, and Sadie is almost glad for it. Glad to know that she can be that way too, glad to know that this isn't the last step for her, and mostly glad that the rain hasn't started yet. She places her bleeding hands on the circle and begins the long intonation that will open the Gate to Hell.

Sure, there's a lifetime to find someone else, but she doesn't want anyone else. It's that simple really, and that's all that matters.

 

\---------

 

**Monks Mound, Cahokia Mounds State Park,  Indiana  June 2nd, 2008**

 

All that matters is getting this done before some park ranger arrives and screws it up. Sam's hands are officially cut, and he studies the blood flow before kneeling beside the chalk sigils and taking a deep breath. Sadie told him this is the Rubicon, and that if he started the next step he couldn't back off. Couldn't call do-over, so Sam knows that this is his last chance to not do something that Dean will no doubt call catastrophically stupid. So he starts the chant before he can wonder how angry his brother will be, or how much of a mistake this probably is. Because it's _Dean_. Dean lying there with his chest ripped open and his eyes dull and flat. Sam closed them, but he can still see that stare. That loss.

Dean's eyes have been an ever-present thing in his life since he can remember. A living entity that he has both avoided and longed for, and in death they are just eyes. Nothing sparkling, no mischief or glee, and certainly none of Dean's characteristic devil may care attitude. Without Dean behind them they are all organic material lumped together, and Sam thinks even if he didn't love Dean the way he does he would have done this just to fix what Lilith broke. To fix Dean's eyes.

He can feel the spell building around him, strange and off-kilter, and there's a moment when Sam wonders if he said the last sentence right. He can smell ozone in the air, and the censer burning off the aconite and gum arabic, and then the world begins to shake around him. Sadie warned him about this part, and Sam simply raises the volume of his voice and narrows his gaze. His bleeding hands judder over the ground as he continues working the spell energies. The smells from the censer are overwhelmed with the scent of burning flesh and sulfur. He can feel the hairs on his face smoldering as the ground under Dean's body opens, and Dean floats in mid-air above the split. It's not steps, but a rough and rocky path that Sam was prepared for. He stands slowly, legs tingling from blood loss, and then makes his wobbly way down into the hole he's opened. He reaches up once and trails his fingers over his brother's thigh. Remembers how hot it was in Pennsylvania, and how the muscles rolled under his fingertips. Then he continues downwards, and begins the _katabasis_. She warned him about the rest of it, so when the tunnel narrows and the light goes red Sam doesn't hesitate for even a second.

There's screaming, a world of screaming, and voices moan to him out of the rocks that he should help, that he did this, that he's at fault. They call him _Demon Prince_ and _half-breed_ , they call him _incestuous_ and _monstrous_ , they call him a lot of things. Sometimes the voices are just an amalgamation of the sounds of suffering and pain, but sometimes they are familiar. He hears his father at one point, then Jess, and then strangely enough the voice of his first roommate. He didn't know the guy was dead. Sometimes though, the worst times, he hears Dean. Calling to him to save him, screaming his name, and Sam speeds up when that voice starts. Goes faster because that's all he can do. He's heard Dean in pain before, but this is something new entirely. This is a sound that he doesn't even really equate with his brother, and Sam will do anything to make it stop. Whether it's a trick or not doesn't matter because that's _Dean_.

When the tunnel opens up though he's in a courtroom, and the judge sitting at the front stares at him impassively while the audience turns as one to gape. There's someone sitting in the plaintiff's side, so Sam takes the defense and sits. He remembers Sadie's warning.

_"It was the room I defended my dissertation in. I had to bare my soul. Had to before I could make the demand."_

"Samuel Winchester. You stand on trial for the crimes of incest, not honoring your father and mother, selfishness, and murder. How do you plead?"

He remembers Sadie's words. Remembers them well. "I plead not guilty."

The prosecutor laughs mirthlessly while the judge leans over his bench. "On what grounds do you find for this? You are aware our witness list is long and comprehensive are you not?"

"This court doesn't have the jurisdiction to try me. I can only be judged by one man." He holds his hands up, and the sigils glow the color of Dean's eyes. Sam wasn't quite expecting that, but there's an outburst of wails and moans before the judge quiets them down. "I wish to plead guilty to his crimes."

There's a long silence, and then the judge's black eyes narrow down. "You have been making the wrong kinds of friends Samuel. The court will give you one chance to reconsider your plea. Simply say not guilty and you may leave and return to the world above."

Does he have to think about it? Not really. He doesn't even pretend that there's a moment of consideration. This is for Dean. "I hold to my plea. Guilty of the crimes of Dean Winchester. I wish to serve his sentence concurrently."

The audience swells into sound again, screams of rage and agony, and then the judge is banging his fist against the bench before order is restored. "You think you can decide that?"

"I know I can." Sam keeps his gaze, doesn't bother glancing around because the rest of it is just props and scenery. Just a function of his mind explaining a concept he can't fathom. Sadie taught him that.

"Alright. This court finds the defendant, Samuel Winchester, guilty of the crimes of Dean Winchester. Sentence is an eternity to be served concurrently. It is so ruled."

There's that banging again, and then Sam is falling, and when he lands he knows the pain will begin.

 

\---------

 

**Eaton, Colorado  August 2nd, 2003**

 

The pain begins when he wakes up, and only intensifies when he turns his head to see her. Nate stares at Sadie for a long time. It took him five hours to get from the field into the house, and that was without her. He drags himself into the garage and then finds the wheelbarrow. No matter how small she is there's no chance he could carry her right now. He uses the wheelbarrow as a crutch to get back out to her, and finds that she hasn't changed positions since he left. Her hands are still bleeding, and the depth of the cuts on her left one let him know she was nervous, but determined. _Well of course she was_. He tilts the wheelbarrow and rolls her into it before pushing it back upright and slowly rolling them back in. By the time he gets her to the door he's covered in sweat, and the agony is incredible.

She doesn't help or react when he rolls her out of the wheelbarrow on the porch, shoves and drags her inside, and then collapses on the floor. He doesn't remember anything after the hellhounds. Did he never even make it to Hell proper? Or did she find a way to erase his memory? His watch still works, and it informs him he's been gone fourteen hours. What the fuck did she do?

It takes days for him to be able to get up, move around easily, and hold down food. Until then he drinks copious amounts of water, works on dragging her from room to room, and tries to get his muscles to work again. The first time she shits herself he cries for an hour. It's the most ridiculous response he could possibly have, but this is the girl that shamed a full-grown man with a doctorate at the age of eleven when he claimed that evolution was a lie. The girl who'd hacked into the school's computer system at twelve to change his attendance records so he wouldn't drop out. This was the genius, the marvel, the prodigy, and she'd just shit herself like a baby. While he cried and washed her she simply stared blankly at nothing, and he tried not to think of Jack Nicholson and _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_.

He used her books to read the lacerations on her hands, got a clear view of her thought processes from the copious notes she'd left behind, and fisted his hair when he realized there was no way back. No way out. She'd done this, and now he'd have to clean up the damage as best he could. So he had a way to get her to function as best as she could, and she moved like an obedient doll every time he used it. Four months after their trip to Hell Sadie spoke for the first time.

"The Hegelian Dialectic requires that we understand all of human history as perpetuated by thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis. It was the building block for major modern philosophies, and Karl Marx's go to theory when formulating Communism. If we understand this, we can understand why there is war and suffering. We will always find an other, we will fight it, and then we will consume it or be consumed."

"Eat your lunch babe." She took a mechanical bite of the sandwich and spoke again with her eyes on the table.

"But what if there is no synthesis? What if we simply continue to struggle against one opposition with no clear ending? With this binary of movement and stasis will we simply sit still? Will history be arrested and frozen, or will we consider it movement even when we are not moving?"

He covers his burning eyes and pushes his own meal away. "Babe you gotta-"

"Thesis: I am in Hell." Her head slammed against the table, and she slept for seventeen hours. When she woke up she recognized him for a little bit, and then slipped back into that weird catatonic state she'd been in since he came back. But Nate had a way in now. An inkling of what was going on in her head, and that was everything he needed to get started. He swallowed down the last of his sandwich and started planning.

 

\-------

 

**Eaton, Colorado  October 2nd, 2008**

 

Dean swallows hard and then puts his beer down. "So Sammy's still in Hell?"

Nate's head shook and his eyes stayed on the floor in front of him. "Nah man. Not really. He thinks he is. He's experiencing it like that because he's all fucked on time, but that's not real. The only way to make her better was to anchor her in one time and place. To make sure she knew where she really was and why. The only one who could do it was the one she'd tied herself to. In the case of your brother that's you. Get me?"

He did. He did, but he didn't want to. "I need to order Sam around. Tell him what to do. Work on him 'til he figures out he's with me and he's safe."

Nate reached out, clapped his shoulder once awkwardly and then stepped back and cleared his throat. "It don't get much easier man. Trust me. She's been back a while and while she's better now I can't trust her with the general populace. Even before she went and broke the rules by telling your brother she wasn't safe out there. Hunting? You're gonna have to find a safe place to hole him up, 'cause he won't be doing that again any time soon. No getting around it and no makin' it easier. Sorry Dean."

And then Dean's throwing his beer bottle, screaming wordlessly as he punches once, twice, three times into the wall beside him until the plaster has cracked and something in his knuckles gives with a satisfying crunch. Nate never says anything, never moves, and when it's over Dean's standing still and panting while his fist drips blood. Sadie's head pokes into the kitchen for half a second, and her eyes narrow once before she nods softly and sits at the table. Accepts a beer from Nate and drinks woodenly.

He wants to scream at her. It would have been better if she'd left them alone. If she'd turned Sam away, and that's not fair because he knows Sam. Knows his brother would have stopped at nothing once he figured out that she could get Dean out of Hell. _Fucking asshole_. He sits shakily across from her and takes a deep breath. "So Sam, what, suffered for all my sins?"

The bottle pauses halfway to her mouth. "Semantics."

"Excuse me?"

"Semantics. Suffered for your sins suggests there's a hard written set of rules that you broke, and that each one had some inherent punishment that Sam would then have to live through. That's not how it works. It's what you feel guilty for, and the punishments are based upon the worst thing that you can imagine happening as a result. That's how I pulled it off. I tried contacting a crossroads demon to buy Nate back, but they aren't too fond of losing hunters. Then I tried to figure out a way to get around the demon, but the highest member of the Christian Hell's food chain is Lucifer, and from what I could tell he's not able to be contacted. That severely limited my options, but it came to me that once you get into things as ephemeral and theoretical as the afterlife it doesn't negate the possibility of perceptive reality. So I tweaked it. I set the spell to contact the Egyptian Underworld, and trusted that a trial in front of Osiris would end the way I wanted it to."

Dean's head is already hurting, and he drains his beer before another one magically appears at his elbow. He looks over to see Nate's sympathetic expression before the other hunter sits beside him. "She's talked like that since I first met her."

Sadie's head tilted quizzically. After a while she took a deep breath and rubbed at the back of her neck. "Which part?"

Well that was a loaded question. "Start with 'perceptive reality'."

"It's another theory. Everything we experience as reality is only there because we perceive it. Under that line of thought the reason we have so many different versions of Hell is because everyone perceives it differently. Thusly, all Underworlds are the same but we make differences in them when we enter. The theory turned out to be true."

"So Sammy walked into the Egyptian Underworld and demanded Osiris let me go, and the demons just let him?"

Nate shifted uncomfortably, and Dean looked up to see Sam standing in the doorway looking unsure. It was the most emotion his brother had given him since he got back. Other than the freak-outs that is, and Dean was so glad to see it he had to grip his fingers bloodless to not jump up and grab Sam. Instead he kept his voice even and calm. "Sammy?"

"Concurrent." Sam shifted once and his hands stayed limply at his sides. "Concurrent."

Dean glances Sadie's way and watches her eyes go soft and sad.

Nate rasped out, "Tell him to sit down and be calm. Tell him when it is and where. Anchor him."

So Dean got up, herded Sam to the spot beside her, and then leaned in and soothed in his best big brother voice. "It's October 2nd, 2008 Sammy and you're in Eaton, Colorado at Sadie's house. We're figuring out how to fix you baby boy. Do you remember that?" For the first time in forever Dean felt like good luck was on his side when Sam nodded and stared at his hands. He immediately distrusted that feeling.

"Concurrent."

"Yeah Sammy concurrent. What the hell does that mean?" Dean looked Sadie's way, and her lips pursed once before smoothing out.

 

\---------

 

**Eaton, Colorado May 8th, 2008**

Sam smoothed the bed sheet as he watched her chew on her finger absently. "So what about the time period? That's the part I still don't get. They call it eternity for a reason you know."

He's trying to be funny, but she doesn't laugh. Instead her big dark eyes study him seriously.

"Do you know anything about String Theory?"

"Uh. Well, as much as any self-respectable nerd I guess. I know it's a reconciliation between quantum mechanics and relativity. I know it's connected to a belief in multiple universes. I know science-fiction writers adore it."

She's nodding even as her mouth moves. "Ok. That's a good start. How far is seven million miles?"

"What?" It's the fact that her face never changes expression that unsettles Sam. Usually when someone throws conversational curve balls they at least smirk a bit. Instead she's just studying him, and Sam pulls the bedspread over the guest bed and then leans against the wall. "It's seven million miles."

"Pick an object and then use it to explain the length of seven million miles."

"I can't-uh-seven million one mile tracks?" He pushed his hair back and then there was a hint of a smile on her face.

"Don't trouble yourself. The human brain isn't capable of really comprehending things of that size. We pay it lip service, but we can't really get at it. The same applies to time. Eternity is a thing that we have a word for, but we have no way of properly comprehending it."

Sam considers that for a long time before he speaks again. "But you comprehend it now." Sadie doesn't look up. She's pale and her head stays down. "Because you've experienced it. I'm going to experience it. Is that what's wrong with you Sadie?"

"Yes. Imagine that your mind, everything that makes you uniquely Sam, is a container. Someone drops a miniaturized Empire State Building into your mind and waits for it to expand. Everything gets blown everywhere, and you're left trying to pick up the pieces. It's exhausting."

"Where does String Theory come in Sadie? How did you get out of there _and_ serve an eternity?"

"When I demanded they let me take on Nate's punishment I was sentenced. I demanded they let me serve the time-"

"Concurrently instead of consecutively." The last piece of the puzzle slots into place for Sam, and now he's back in Palo Alto. Back in a group of pre-law students discussing their future practices and their potential law schools. "You served eternity all at once."

"Eternity is a consequence of multiple dimensions. We live in a moment Sam, but an infinity of moments is still infinity."

The strength goes out of his legs and Sam finds himself sitting on the floor staring at her. "So they stack all the possible dimensions together and you suffer through every one of them. Will I be able to handle it?"

Her fingers shake as she covers her mouth. "As well as I did. Maybe better. You're more grounded than I am. You have Dean."

Except Sam isn't so sure about that. Isn't sure about anything anymore, because the whole idea is insane. He's going to do something that previously only existed in mythology, and the consequences are mind-bending. _Literally_. He has to keep reminding himself that at the end of the day it's for Dean. That Dean will walk out of Hell with a few scars, and who knows? Maybe his brother's legendary capacity for self-sacrifice will hit its limit at trying to take care of a fully-grown catatonic man. Maybe he'll drop Sam off at an asylum or a hospital and walk away. Live a life that's wholly his. Maybe pigs will fly and Paris Hilton will learn self-respect. The sky's the limit in this new world that Sam is about to explore.

More importantly Sam knows the last of it now. There are no more excuses for him staying, and the only thing left to figure out is how to bond with Dean, and where to open the gate. The last part will depend on where they happen to be when Dean's taken, and the first depends on when Sam can get up the courage. When he can make sure Dean is just inebriated enough to go for it, but not so inebriated he can't perform. He collects the ingredients she has and the list of the other things he'll need, makes sure that he has everything repacked in his duffel, and then stops in the hallway to see her standing very still near the door with a big day-planner in her hands. She holds it out to Sam and keeps his gaze for a long time.

"Put in Dean's date. I'd like to remember it."

He took the planner and flipped through it slowly. Each day was written out in a sloppy and masculine hand, and the entries had everything from classes she was teaching to meals she needed to eat. He went to the right day, scribbled in Dean's name, and then glanced at her. Her eyes were wet when she took the day-planner back, but they never lifted to look at him again.

"Don't forget anything." It was almost as good as a real goodbye.

 

\--------

 

**Eerie, Pennsylvania  May 28th, 2008**

 

Sam won't tell Dean goodbye. It's the first thing Dean notices has changed since his brother got back from his fact-finding mission. It's probably a side-effect of realizing that there's nothing that can be done. Dean is going to Hell and that's all there is. There will be no last minute Hail-Marys and no miracle fix. If there is a God to combat the evil they see daily He's washed His hands of Dean, and all the better for Him. Dean's not going to lose sleep at night about whether or not there's a big sky father approving of his choices, or if there's anything waiting for him other than an eternity of punishment. Hell he probably would have ended up there anyway.

With every day that passes Dean gets more reflective on his past. He's been almost everywhere, seen all the crappy tourist traps, saved a ton of people, and eaten at some of the best restaurants in the country. What else is there? He's lived several lifetimes in one short one, and there's nothing left for him to do. No matter what that little voice that started talking in Union Springs says. Dean doesn't need to drag Sam down with him, and that's all there is to that train of thought. So when Sam stops saying goodbye, loses that look of hopelessness and gains an edge to his face Dean's never seen before, well that's all the better. Only one of them needs to be crippled by guilt and self-doubt, and it sure as hell doesn't need to be Sam. Dean did this, and now he'll pay for it. That's all there is to it.

He doesn't want to go. God he doesn't want to go, because there's still things he needs to do. He's never seen the Grand Canyon, he's never had a moment's rest, and he hasn't had a home since he was four. Then there's Sam. Sam who still needs someone to look after him even if he refuses to admit it. Sam who's still so eager to throw himself into crazy plans and theories even if those always end badly. Who's gonna take care of Sam? Who will keep him from turning into Dean? Jaded and hateful, sure that the whole damn world is against him, and Sam's never crossed that last line. Shit the kid still _prays_ , and Dean's never been able to figure that one out. Prayer. Dean doesn't try, hasn't ever cared for it, and now it may be all that's left. He wants to try it, because hedging his bets can't hurt, but there are no words. Who would he pray to?

Instead he goes for hedonism, and takes it hard. Doubles his one-night conquests, drinks more than even Dad ever did, and gambles like there's no tomorrow. Which is true in just a few days. They've got the hard line on Lilith, and they're headed that way, but why? What good can it really do? Dean doesn't want to buy in to Sammy's powers. Doesn't want Ruby to stay behind as his brother's back-up because he doesn't trust that Ruby will take care of his brother. No one can take care of his brother like he can. That's what he's learned, and it's a hard-won lesson. Not even Jess could really keep Sam straight and sane. Keep him from diving headfirst into the same stupidity Dean has been taking part in his whole life. The thought of Sam alone…

But he won't be. Bobby will be there to keep him from doing anything too stupid, and Sam will go to Bobby. Dean will make sure of it. Somehow he's left the bar while he's thinking, driven all the way back to the motel, and he sits in the Impala and rubs at his face while he considers it. He should have started hustling months ago and laying money aside for Sam. In between his aversion to the credit card fraud and his inability to take advantage of idiots Sam won't be able to rake in the kind of cash he needs to survive. There's not enough time now, and Dean isn't sure what he can do about that. Sam will have to stow his moral objections and just use the credit cards until he gets to Bobby. That could work, and honestly Dean just doesn't know what else to do. He can't tell Sam to stop hunting now. Sam's determined to live the life, and Dean was stupid enough to say he was proud of that.

Why didn't he just truss his baby brother up and leave him out in the wild on a platter?

He pushes his way out of the car and finds that his gait isn't quite steady as he heads for the door. It opens creakily, and Dean's secretly glad for that every time. A few extra seconds of-

All brain function stops at the sight in front of him. There's incense burning, and his brother is sitting on the bed with his head down and his hands gripped between his knees. He's fairly certain Sam's not praying, because most people don't pray naked. Then again Sam's never been one to follow normal even when he cries for it so much. Somehow his mouth finds a way to function.

"Sammy?" It's a croak, and his brother's head doesn't come up when it happens.

"Dean I-I want to-" Sam's hands are shaking, and Dean's torn between taking them and holding them steady or running from the room as fast as he can. He remembers the taste of Sam from Union Springs to this day. It took a whole lot of Gumby Girl to get the image of his brother naked out of his mind, and there's not enough time left in Dean's life to get this picture erased.

This is a mistake. Some kind of incredible mistake. Any second now some naked girl is gonna come wandering out of the bathroom and say Sam's name, and his brother will blush, and then they'll all laugh about it like this happens all the time. It's happened more than once with Dean on the other end, so it's plausible. Except the bathroom door is open and the room is lacking in any feminine perfume. Dean's pretty sure he'd be able to smell it even over the scent of the incense. Which leaves not much in the way of possibilities to explain this little scenario. Unless Sam is being stupid again, and there's always a good chance of that.

"Sam. Put your goddamn clothes on." He doesn't slur it. He's surprisingly sober now.

"Dean I-" When Sam finally looks up there's a moment that Dean is pretty sure will go down in history as the worst confusion ever felt by one man. Sam's crying, and there's a line to his shoulders that suggests he's been trying not to for some time. He pushes himself off the bed and Dean gets one long look at the lines of his lanky little brother before Sam's face is in his. Whatever it is Sam is or wants or whatever is lost in the press of lips, and the sudden low growl that Dean can't place or identify. He lets himself have it, the same way he did in Union Springs, before the smarter part of him kicks in. Sure Sam tastes great, and Dean loves the feel of him, but this is _Sam_. He parts them fast, pushing gently he thought except Sam hits the bed with his knees and ends up sprawled and naked in front of him. The damn incense smells almost as delicious as his brother looks, naked and spread out. Which is a bad fucking thought. A very, very, bad fucking thought.

"Dean." There's longing there, and lust, and Dean can't take it. He's only fucking human, and Sam looks good. Skin that soft golden he's so familiar with, and the cut lines of abdominal muscles and long hairy legs all spread. He's seen Sam naked a thousand times, but never in this context. Not in real life. He knows what Union Springs was about. Sam's always been perceptive, and somewhere in that overactive brain of his Sam came up with the idea that the only way to get Dean to leave with him was to give Dean what he'd always wanted. He's never questioned Sam's ability to read him. To know what Dean wants to keep hidden. So this, this is Sam's way of giving it to him before he's gone forever. _Sammy's last goodbye_. Dean suddenly doesn't want it. If this could happen, if he could have this, then it has to be permanent. It has to be both of them, and there can't be desperation and anger mixed in. It has to go slow and sweet, and for once in his life he needs to be a goddamn romantic.

At least that's what he's thinking as he kicks off his boots and grabs Sam's ankle. Lifts it to his mouth and tastes along the line of it and up Sam's muscled calf. His brother lets out this broken noise, and Dean keeps moving his lips and tongue up that flesh, tasting and licking, while Sam keeps saying his name. Ruby said he could stay human. Could hold onto something that would keep him from going full demon, and that whatever it was it had to be something strong. _Sam's strong_ , the traitorous voice in his lizard brain points out. Stronger than Dean sometimes, and more than capable of being the memory that keeps Dean from turning completely. He's worked his way up to Sam's thigh, and he skips the heat of his brother's groin to lick the joint of leg and hip before working his way to the navel. The broken sounds are getting more urgent with every second, and Dean can hardly stand to hear them. They're all tied up in everything he's ever regretted.

"Union Springs." He says it with a mouthful of Sam's hipbone, and whether it's the words or the vibration of his voice that make Sam jump Dean will never know. He can't even make himself ask.

"Then. Wanted it then. Before then."  All this time. _All this goddamn time_. Which is all good and well to think about now, but Dean knows the truth. If it weren't for the axe hanging over his head he'd never be doing this. Wouldn't be laughing lowly at the way all of Sam's muscles twitch when he drags his teeth along that soft skin. He's always heard people do crazy things when they know they're dying. He bites Sam's nipple and listens to the thick sound of pain and pleasure Sam makes.

"Why?" It's not even the question he wants the answer to. He wants to taste more, wants to dip his tongue into every single inch of Sam's body and memorize every nook and cranny. He wants to keep Sam making these noises until the hellhounds come and the world is taken from him. Sam is taken from him. That growl comes again and Dean realizes it's him, and that his teeth are maybe moving too hard against the skin of Sam's throat. He pulls back and gives himself a second to get it back under control, but Sam seems to think that he's waiting for an answer. He watches those hazel eyes go from fuzzy to clear and tight.

"Because you're Dean." It's said like Sam's telling him that water is wet or vampires have to be beheaded. Like it's the simplest thing ever, and Dean's a fucking idiot for not understanding. There are still tears in the back of Sam's eyes, but his mouth is getting that little prudish quirk it always does when Sam's getting smug. Dean loves that look as much as he hates the inspiration for it. So he bites at Sam's lower lip, sucks it into his mouth, and then releases before licking his way towards his brother's throat. There's so much he wants them to try, and there's no damn time, but Dean's going to do as much of it as he can. He licks and bites his way back down before tasting the heft of Sam's shaft. It's salty, surprisingly so, and Dean's pretty sure that's pre-come or sweat. The smell is familiar and new all at once, musky and thick and heady, and Dean takes as much as he can before backing off slowly. The sounds Sam makes just push Dean further. He presses his tongue against the skin under Sam's cock, tastes one ball and then the other. Buries his face into his brother's heat and licks like Sam's the world's tastiest pie.

Long and strong fingers tighten in his short hair, rove over his neck, and then grip his shoulder tight. One of Sam's hands pries Dean's fingers up and leads them, and then Sam is pressing lube into his palm and making those noises again as Dean fumbles with it. He's had anal sex before, but it was a woman and the importance of this moment isn't the same at all. He wants this to be special, perfect, and that makes it goddamn unlucky that this is their first and only time. He spreads the lube over his fingers and then slides one down over Sam's balls and around the entrance he's going to be in. That thought is almost the end of him, and Dean bites his lip hard and tries to hold on to what little control he has left.


	5. Chapter 5

**Eaton, Colorado  October 2nd, 2008**

His control is close to breaking. They've been drinking for a while now, and there's not much on his stomach to absorb it. Somehow he finds himself with a plate full of pie and a fork. Nate plops beside him and begins on his own slice. "Sadie's a good cook. Says it's all about the science of it."

The man isn't lying. The pie is incredible, and he looks up to see her watching him without speaking. "'S good."

Sadie nods and then steeples her scarred fingers. "You two should go to sleep after this. Sam is probably tired, and I imagine you are too."

Which is true, but he really needs to finish learning every aspect of the ritual, and all of the cure. Although at this point it's hard to remember any of it. The whole thing is so convoluted and difficult to follow that Dean's having trouble keeping all of it straight. He just wants to grab Sam and get him talking again. Wants to hear that husky and thick voice again. Wants his brother to be alright.

"So all I gotta do is order him around and make him figure out when it is. That doesn't seem impossible."

Sadie's eyes skitter away and Nate bites his lip. "It isn't impossible, but it's going to be difficult. Sadie tried going back into the world too fast and it almost broke her."

"Yeah but she got-I mean it was different. The demons and the kid with the-" He stops at the other hunter shaking his head. "What?"

"The kid picked her up from here. She went back to work for two weeks before the demon-sightings started. That wasn't what made her ask to teach from home."

Dean's turning away from him and towards Sadie even if he doesn't want to. Even if he longs for an escape. Longs to run as fast as possible. "What happened?" Asking is like dragging himself across the grass all over again. Carrying Sam's weight up the muddy road and towards the Impala as he began to map out the nearest crossroads. This is the answer that will determine the rest of Dean's life.

"I got-I get confused. About where I am. The more people I have to keep track of or events that get added the harder it is to follow. I started teaching the wrong classes. Couldn't identify anyone. Then one day I was speaking with a colleague and I thought he was-I just." Sadie blew out a long breath and looked towards Sam. "Porter Clewsky was this windbag that helped me with my dissertation. I don't remember who I thought he was, but I basically told him that I'd really done it. Later I honestly didn't believe he would think it was anything other than a mental break, but he must have believed it. He told Sam about it after all. A few days after that a student came to argue a grade and I didn't recognize her. I went away. Lost all handle on where and when I was and then the next thing I knew Nate was there, and I was home, and it had been a month. I worked out a contract with the school to work from home, to reduce the number of classes I was teaching, but publish more. I do satellite lectures that bring in money and prestige, and as long as I don't have to recognize anyone then I can function fairly well."

"And it's been?"

"Five years." Sadie's face is almost apologetic. "It's been five years."

The chair underneath him doesn't feel steady anymore, and Dean brings his hands up to his face to try to stop the world from spinning. There's a hand on his elbow, a voice across from him, but all he can see is Sam. Sam's blank face. Sam, lost and broken and so incredibly delicate that Dean could shatter what little is held together with a wayward thought or a simple gesture. Sam who will not be able to hunt. Sam who won't be able to function in society, be left alone, take care of himself. Sam'll need constant care and supervision. He'll need to be slowly brought back and then kept that way. Dean can't buy a house to hole Sam up, can't promise him safety and stability. Shit Dean can barely keep himself alive.

"What am I supposed to do?" He remembers the shack, Sam dead, and the memory is so present it's jarring. His brother is dead again, and Dean's being asked to give up his whole life one more time in the interest of protecting Sam. To resurrect him again. No more hunting. No more anything. How will he support him and watch out for him? How can he possibly fix this? When his eyes finally swing back to Nate he sees sympathy but no pity.

"I don't know man. That's up to you."

Before Dean can think of a response, before he could find words to leave his mouth Sadie held up a hand. "Sleep. Everyone should get some sleep. Decisions cannot be made intellectually while tired."

He sees a spark in her then, a sign of something that was probably once Sadie McCullough, the reluctant genius. It reminds him oddly of Ash, and that's a memory just as painful as the rest. Dean listens though. Gets up and leads Sam upstairs. Gets Sam to brush his teeth and use the bathroom before bed, and how did he not notice it before? That Sam responded to direct commands. That he listened to Dean when he gave clear orders. It's the worst side-effect Sam could possibly have because it's against every bit of his little brother's nature. When he gets back to himself-

And then it hits Dean again. Sam may never come back. Sam may never be his bright, inquisitive, pain-in-the-ass little brother again. The bed rushes up to meet him and Dean buries his face in his hands. Sam's standing in the doorway with his hands dangling at his sides and Dean can't take it. It's too much weight. Too much. There are tears, and he's absurdly grateful that Sam can't really see them. Which is probably why he jumps when big hands touch his shoulders. He looks up to see Sam kneeling in front of him, and his brother's face is still slack and expressionless, but there are tears tracing down it. Sam's oddly delicate fingers trace the wet lines on Dean's face and then his voice is a cracked and harsh echo of what it once was.

"Dean. Sorry." Sam's fingers roam over his lips, tracing his tears across the skin there, and then move up again to the hollows under his eyes. "Sorry Dean."

 

He wants to get up and go. Get away from that blank look and that shattered voice, those gentle touches that remind him too much of that last night together. Instead Dean grabs Sam's shoulder, pulls him in tight, and then topples them both into the bed. It's uncomfortable and awkward, but he doesn't want it to end because Sam isn't pulling away or tensing at his touch. Sam's letting himself be held. Dean's still crying, still gripping Sam too tight, but his brother doesn't make even the slightest noise of protest. Just lies there and lets himself be held. Dean runs fingers through Sam's too long hair and talks softly.

"Yeah I know you are kid. I know. I'm sorry too Sammy. Sorry I put you in that spot and sorry I didn't think you'd do something crazy right back. Just sorry, 'cause I ain't sure what to do now."

Sam doesn't talk again though. Lets himself be held, but doesn't talk. Dean falls asleep like that, Sam draped over him heavy and warm.

 

\--------

 

**Eaton, Colorado  February 14th, 2003**

 

Her head is warm and heavy on his shoulder. Nate watches her for a long time. Watches the way her hands flutter uselessly near her mouth and how small she looks sitting in the chair with her knees drawn up. Watches until she finally looks up at him.

"What am I supposed to do here babe? What do you want me to do with you?"

"I could go back to work. The notoriety will die down in a little while, and when that happens I can go back and try again. I can be independent Nate. I promise." She sounds ten again. Assuring him that everything will be alright if he leaves her to watch herself. It didn't work then either.

"Nope. Option is off the table Sadie. Right now we're looking at you staying here or me putting you in an institution. I can't-"

"I won't be locked up. Please don't lock me up. Maybe I can work from here. Satellite, distance learning, or I'll just write. I can make enough off of that."

"Sadie if I stay…listen I'm a hunter babe. We've talked about this before, and we can talk about it 'til we're blue in the face. I can't always be here. I can't promise I'll always come back."

Her fingers twist together and then she pulls away. "Never mind. I'm not interested in arguing. Please do whatever you feel is necessary, and I will take care of myself." It's Sadie's grand defense. Anytime she gets too tense or embarrassed she shuts down and becomes a robot.

"Sit down." It's the first time he's ever used it against her, and her blank face proves he won't be able to do it again. "We're gonna talk this shit out. You don't wanna go to an institution? Fine. You'll stay here. I'll keep the hunts as nearby as I can, and I'll be able to come if you need me. But if this happens again Sadie then what? And if I die? Then what?"

There's a strange look on her face. Something not exactly sly, but knowing and old. Her right hand taps her left one calmly as she looks at nothing. Or maybe it's everything. Nate doesn't know anymore.

"You won't have to worry anymore. That's what you want anyway." It's the kind of one-liner people use to storm away, but she stays perfectly still because Nate told her to sit. He feels lower than he ever has before.

 

\-----

 

**Cicero, Indiana  July 16th, 1999**

 

Dean's never felt lower. The girl is gorgeous, funny, and he's having a good time. It's everything he's never been allowed to have before, and it all pales in comparison to the memory of that kiss with Sam. He's so fucked up he can't even begin to comprehend it. This is beyond anything he's been prepared for. A part of him wants to get back in the Impala and go to Florida. Grab Sam and pin him up against a wall and finish what they started. But his brother is a kid. A desperate kid and Dean can't do that. Can't cross that one line, because it's the last thing Sam has that's normal. His brother is his brother, and that's something Dean can't take from him.

So when his five days are up and he reconnects with Sam and Dad there's a distance between them that there's never been before. Dean put it there though, so he shouldn't be surprised. He's careful not to touch anymore, and if that bothers Sam there's no way to tell. Instead they move from room to room without making eye contact. Sam's body language gets progressively tighter, colder, and Dean tries to ignore it. Sam will get over it. Sam will be glad when he figures out that Dean is giving him what he needs even if it isn't what he wants. Except Sam doesn't seem to believe that, and then his little brother gets the acceptance letter.

Dean wants to be prepared. Wants to pretend that he knew it was coming and it's a relief. Instead it's a living, writhing thing behind his ribs eating his heart out of his chest. Working its way nice and slow to the surface. When Dad finds the letter, and the fight begins, Dean wants to be anywhere else. Wants to shout along with them, but that's never been his thing. He's always been the one to step in between them and break it up before they can go to far. Except this time he can't. This time he's rooted to the spot by what he knows is coming afterwards. There's nothing his father can say that will change Sam's mind, and nothing Sam can say that will fix what's broken. Then his dad crosses the finish line for the hurtful shit race they're having. "If you walk out that door don't you ever come back."

Dean watches Sam shoot him a look, questioning and enraged, and Dean says nothing. Bites the inside of his mouth so hard he tastes blood and bile, but he says nothing. So Sam packs a bag, and Dad leaves for the bar. Sam stops at the doorway and stares at him for a long time. "I didn't want this Dean."

"Yeah, well, you sent off your box tops and won the prize Sam. No sense complaining now."

"Tell me to stay or come with me." There's no inflection in Sam's voice. No emotion or expression in his face. He's grown so tall Dean's not eye-level with him anymore. His little brother is almost an adult, and Dean missed it somewhere. Sometime in between avoiding him and wanting him Dean missed the full transformation. Sam's almost a stranger now.

"Do what you're gonna do." It's not what he wants. He wants to grab Sam and hold him down. Tie him to the bed and take him so that Sam will never leave. Whatever has to be done so that Dean can have his goddamn family. Or maybe he wants to leave with Sam, but he just can't figure out how. How to walk away from Dad and the life. Maybe if things were different. Maybe if they had the yellow-eyed demon locked in Hell, or if they had some idea that Dad wouldn't get himself killed or drink himself to death as soon as no one was around to watch him. There's nothing left to say, and then Sam leaves.

Dean drinks himself blind that night. Wakes up the next morning and starts again the same way he always has. Stumbles through his hangover and packs up, and he and Dad leave one person short. The Impala has never felt so big or so empty. There's one thing he promises himself. If he ever gets the chance to make it up to Sam he'll do it. Do it and be grateful that just once he was given a second chance. But he isn't holding out hope for that.

 

\------

 

**Palo Alto, California November 2nd, 2005**

 

He's not holding out hope that it's a miracle cure for what's ailing them, but it's a step and they've taken it. There's still a divide between them, but being with Dean again was everything. Even if it was only for a short while sliding back into the Impala was like coming home. Sitting so close he could smell Dean and listening to his shitty music and bad jokes… It's beyond Sam's ability to explain how much it means to him really. Which is awful on so many levels that he's left feeling flushed and guilty at the thought of it. Of going inside and seeing Jess. Seeing her and knowing that the whole thing is a lie Sam's concocted to try to leave his brother behind. Dean always thought Sam was the weaker liar, but look at how well he's done.

There are cookies in the kitchen, and Sam takes one as he heads upstairs. The familiar sounds of Jess showering, and the softness of the bed he knows so well is all comforting, but not as visceral and intense as the Impala or Dean. Will things change? Will they be able to make it up, to be better, or will Dean drop off the face of the earth again and leave Sam behind? It doesn't matter, because if Sam wants he can push it now. Dean's opened the door, and Sam's never been good at being told what to do. _The door is open again_. He falls asleep with a smile on his face.

Sam wakes up to his childhood. He's heard the story a thousand times but he doesn't remember any of it. Now he knows. Pretty blonde woman pinned to the ceiling, fire and blood, and Dean carrying him out. For half a second when Dean pulls him up Sam forgets he's supposed to be devoted to the woman dying above him. He grabs at Dean, holds on, because he's so strong. Shorter, yes, but stronger than Sam could ever hope to be. Dean is a pillar of marble, an immovable force, and Sam's known it his whole life. Even when they were kids there's never been anyone as fierce and strong as Dean. Then duty and guilt kick in and Sam tries to pull away, to go back into the inferno, and Dean's dragging him out. Out into the cool air and the lack of fire, and it's them again. Sam the defenseless baby and Dean the protective older brother. He pushes, struggles, but he doesn't want to go. Doesn't want it to end. If Sam had the choice he would just let Dean drag him back to the Impala and then ride as far away as possible. Far from the nice girl that died because Sam needed a distraction. Away from the law school that Sam was going to join to stay in control of the urges he knows will never be satisfied. Should never be satisfied.

Dean carries Sam away from those things, and as soon as they leave Sam hopes he forgets all of them even though he knows he won't. His one shot at normal, and Sam can't remember why he ever thought he could have it. Or why he'd want it.

 

\-------

 

**Eaton, Colorado October 3rd, 2008**

 

The warmth of Sam makes Dean wonder why his body wanted to wake up. His legs are asleep, and that's gonna hurt like a bitch when he tries to get up but eventually he has to. Dean can distantly hear a voice droning on, and realizes it's Sadie but not like he recognizes her. Sam's still sleeping deeply so he slips from the bed, rubs circulation back into his legs as he crosses the hallway and slips through the door. It's her distance learning classroom, and she's standing in front of the dry erase board making a diagram of circles as she lectures. She sounds confident, assured, and her hands move easily as she sketches it out.

"So we have Hobson's Choice, the Catch-22, and Morton's Fork. All of them present us with problems, choices, and solutions. But none of them are enjoyable or preferable. When these are our only options where does Free Will come in?"

A tinny male voice comes from the speakers. "Well they all include choices. So there's our Free Will." There's a collective chuckle from the rest of the class, and Sadie turns to the screen and removes her reading glasses.

"Alright. Fine point. So let's start with Hobson's Choice. You're starving to death Mr-?"

"Denario."

"Yes, of course. You're starving to death Mr. Denario. You stumble your way into a little cafe and there's a display case full of delicious meats and cheeses. Your mouth is watering, your stomach cramping painfully, and there in front of you is everything you could ever want to satisfy those pains. You put down your money and the girl behind the counter hands you moldy bread with a piece of rubbery cheese in it. You want one of the tasty dishes. You're paying for it after all, but she tells you it's this sub-standard fare or nothing at all. What do you choose?"

There's a throat clearing, and then the kid responds somewhat defiantly. "I go somewhere my money is appreciated."

"There's nowhere else Mr. Denario. You have no other choice. Starvation or the worst sandwich she can legally sell you. What do you do?"

Silence for a bit and then the kid's voice comes out resigned. "I eat the sandwich, but that's still a choice Professor McCullough. I have a choice and thusly Free Will."

Sadie's eyes skitter over Dean without ever focusing on him. "I would posit that you don't. A choice between starvation and misery isn't a choice at all. Your natural instincts for survival are pushing you to take what you can get and be grateful for it. It flies in the face of a denotative understanding of choice. You are being forced to eat moldy bread and bad cheese, and you'll please yourself as best you can by insisting that there was a choice to be made. Should I continue with this line of reasoning or stop?"

"No I get it. You're an atheist and you want me to swallow your line of logic and agree." Bitter and self-righteous enough Dean wants to scream.

Something in her face hardens, and Dean's amazed to see it. Wonders what the kid on the other end looks like at this very moment. "I am the furthest one can get from being an atheist Mr. Denario. I am simply _informed_." She glances at the wall behind Dean and then steeples her fingers. "That's about it for today class. Email your essays regarding one of the three options by Wednesday night, and remember we have no class Monday."

She hits buttons on the computer for several seconds before releasing a deep breath and looking up at Dean. "Did you sleep well?"

"You don't believe we have Free Will?"

There's a pause, hesitation, and then Sadie's fingers tangle tightly and grip each other. "What are you going to do with Sam?"

It's a blow, and a low one, and her face says she knows it. Knows in the context of this what her question means. "How'm I supposed to protect him? How do I earn enough money to keep him alive and off the grid without leaving him? I can't-fuck you lady. Fuck you. He's my brother and I'm supposed to protect him but I _can't_. That what you wanna hear?"

Sadie stands, hands planted firmly against the desk the computer sits on, and Dean gets the impression it's the only thing holding her up. "I'll take care of him for a price."

That's…well it's not something he was expecting that's for certain. Dean stays in the chair as she continues to hold herself up, and she's taller than him at this angle. He tilts his head a bit to really take in the thin line of her lips and the determination on her face. "What kind of deal you selling sweetheart?"

"If you hunt with Nate. Hunt with him and have his back. Sam can stay here and I'll make sure he gets fed and stays safe. The level of protection on this place is astronomical, and Sam will be safe. As safe as he can be. No one understands what he's going through like I do. So you take care of my friend and I'll take care of your brother. You can visit whenever you like, and that'll be that." Her hands are shaking once the pitch is done. So hard even clenching the desk doesn't hide her trembling.

"You think Nate's gonna go for that? Doesn't seem like an offer he'd be too happy with."

"I don't care. He'll do it if I ask him."

He wants to be harsh with her, but he chooses gentle instead. "Sadie. You can barely take care of yourself. What makes you think you can take care of Sam?"

Nate is there. Dean can sense him this time, and her eyes go over Dean's shoulder and land on the man that will ultimately have a lot to say about this whole thing, and none of it will be good.

"I'm unstable. I understand that. On the other hand I have been where your brother is, and I can understand him too. I can tell you that if you lock him in an asylum he will find a way to kill himself. It's what I was planning to do." There's a harsh intake of breath behind him but she plows forwards as her hands twist together. "Nate was considering the same thing, and for the same reasons. I had to prove that I could take care of myself, because if he locked me in a room it would be too reminiscent of the very place I am still partly a prisoner in. I'm a genius, but Sam's smart too. We're the kind of people who could easily find a way to end our lives even in a high security facility. So your choices here are basically to trust me or kill your brother. Which is, in case you were wondering, a Morton's Fork."

"I've always believed in Free Will sweetheart."

Her eyes are soft and she stumbles past him without speaking again. Leaves him alone with Nate and a new world of possibilities.

"You think she could do it? Handle that kinda responsibility? Fuck why would she want to?"

Nate's silent for a long time, and then he covers his face and takes a deep breath. "Honestly? She's damn hard to predict. I think if she was told she couldn't she'd bust her hump to prove whoever said it wrong. As for why? She never does anything for one reason. Hell she's probably been considering it since she met him. It's gotta be a combination of stuff. Most likely part is her seeing herself in Sam. Another part is she's always been fond of the notion that if I had back-up I'd be safer. Doubt it ever crossed her mind that we may not be the partner type."

"Will she tell us to fuck off if I'm not sure? If I wanna think it over?" Dean realizes how childish and weak it sounds right after it comes out of his mouth. Still, he needs time. Time to see if she can handle the pressure, and to see if he can handle the idea of leaving Sammy in someone else's hands.

 

\--------

**Eaton Colorado, March 3rd, 2008**

Sadie stares at her hands and wonders if she's in control of things more often than not. She likes to believe that if it came down it she could sit very still and clearly explain everything that is in her head. At least as clearly as she could before she made the _katabasis_ , but she knows objectively it's not true. She's gotten better. Much better, and that's something but at moments like this she's still not sure. The front door is open, and the brunette demon is studying the stained glass one of her students made her while she waits for something. Sadie's not sure what. Maybe she's supposed to start screaming or flinging holy water. Maybe she's supposed to do something other than study the demon and wonder if this is really how her Thursday is going to end. She'd rather be inside with a good book. She has a class to prepare for tomorrow, and research to do for that piece on humanness, and this is not a wrinkle she needed or wanted. Finally she clears her throat and tilts her head.

"Yes?"

The demon honestly looks surprised that she's being civil. That she's spoken at all. As if Sadie was going to be silent all through this exchange. It doesn't say much for the demon. Sadie can see her, _it_ , sitting behind the pretty heart-shaped face that it has stolen. Knows the shape and distortion like the back of her scarred hands, because all of these things are uniquely ugly, and uniformly terrifying.

"I've come to make you an offer. We think it's time you handed over the Winchester boy."

Sadie nods thoughtfully and fingers the flask of holy water. She didn't bring the Bible this time around. She can access the memorized exorcisms better these days. She peers around the demon carefully and then leans back a bit so that the wall is against her side. "You came alone?"

The demon smiles then, all sultry and easy, and Sadie hates it a little bit. Has to keep reminding herself that's what it is, an it not worth her consideration. Not worth being afraid of because they have nothing left to scare her with.

"Of course I did honey. See I knew you were a smart girl, always been a smart girl, and you'd listen to reason. I've been authorized to give you a one time only deal, and I think you'll do yourself the favor of hearing me out." She bites her lips once and then nods for the demon to go on. The thing is pleased. "My name's Meg. I'm here to offer you any one thing you want. Free and clear, no claims on your soul, and all you have to do is lead Sammy out here so we can take him."

That's not quite what she was expecting, but it's still within the realm of possibility that she was looking at. "Anything?"

"Anything at all whizkid. You name it and we give it to you. Then we do you an extra favor and take that big old burden off your hands. You have to be tired of carrying the kid everywhere after all."

She thinks of Sam when he first showed up on her doorstep, lanky and desperate. Thinks of Sam the day before, and yesterday, and tomorrow. Considers the multitude of possibilities. "You could offer me, for instance, a clean slate? Wipe my memory so I can be sane again?"

Meg nods and grins again, body relaxing at the prospect of a deal about to be struck.

"You could give me protection for Nate? A promise that he wouldn't meet a bloody and painful death?"

This time the demon raises an eyebrow. "Yeah. In fact I think we could give you both. Seems fair enough, and very easy."

Sadie nods and then chews on her fingernail. "And all I have to do is give you Sam? Why? What's the big deal with Sam?"

"Oh no. I can't tell you that. A girl's gotta have her secrets after all. The only thing you need to know is that he's more use to us than he is to you. I can promise you that."

She scratches once at the spot behind her ear before looking over her shoulder. "And if I say no?"

"Well that would be unfortunate. You say no and I have to take the deal off the table. We'll go after Dean and Nate, and tear them to pieces. Then I come back and discuss this with you again."

Sadie starts to laugh even though all she can hear are screams, and all she smells is burning flesh.


	6. Chapter 6

**Eaton, Colorado October 5th, 2008**

Sam wakes up to the smell of burning flesh. At least he thinks he does, but it's probably not really there. When he takes the time to really analyze it he finds it's actually cinnamon. Dean isn't in the room, and Sam takes several long deep breaths and reminds himself that his brother is not always there, but he's _there_. Somewhere. Sam just needs to find him. That's what he was doing before he fell asleep anyway. Opening the door so he could go down to Hell and find Dean. Except not really Hell, but Sam can't remember what the place he went to was called other than a courtroom, and that Dean _is not here_.

He pushes out of the bed and stumbles his way across the room before finding the door. The knob looks familiar, and it takes Sam a moment to realize why. Because this is Sadie McCullough's house, and Sam is being taught how to save Dean. The rest of it was a dream, and that makes sense. All a bad nightmare because really? Who could go to Hell and survive? The things he dreamed are not something a human being could experience. The burning and ripping, the constant humiliation and shame, and the knowledge that all of the people he loved most were let down by his inability to be good enough. He lets down the people he loves. That's the truth they taught him in Hell, and Jess and Mom and Dad and Dean and always and forever and up and down-

Sam stumbles on the last three steps and barks his shin against the corner of the wall. The pain grounds him. Just a nightmare and Sadie's gonna finish telling him what to do to make sure Dean doesn't spend more time in Hell than he absolutely has to. Except when Sam comes around the corner into the kitchen he finds Sadie, and the real-life version of the picture of her lover, and Dean. Sitting in the middle of the kitchen like it's no big deal. Until Dean looks up and spots him, and then Sam's shaking with the need to apologize. To go to Dean and apologize because Sam has done something very bad but for the life of him he can't remember what. Something unforgivable though, and Dean doesn't look angry but he should. Dean looks awestruck, and open, and Sam grabs the doorframe and wonders who's behind him. When he looks there's no one there. Maybe what he did wrong was coming here. Dean's only got so much time left and Sam sort of abandoned him. Does Dean know the plan?

It takes milliseconds to cross the kitchen and grab Sadie's arms, and the way she jerks under his palms suggests he might be gripping too hard but he can't loosen up yet. "Did you tell him? You didn't did you? Sadie? If you told him I can't-"

And then he's there. The other piece of Sam's puzzle slotting against him and pulling him back into his warm body. Dean's arm like a bar of titanium around his chest as he collapses into Dean's heated flesh. _The fire was so hot it was cold Dean. I was always cold there, and you always danced right out of my reach, and I knew you'd be warm_. It's an alien thought, foreign and unwelcome even if it sounds like it's in his voice. The hunter, _Nate_ , is there and he's touching her and tilting her arms to look at the livid handprints on her flesh. They'll no doubt bruise, and Sam opens his mouth to apologize, but he can't remember how to make his vocal chords work. He catches Sadie's dark blue eyes though and she seems to forgive him even as the world spins and his face is buried in the heat and strength of Dean's shoulder.

"Sammy. Fuck Sammy it's good to see you up little brother." Dean's voice sounds wrecked, and Sam tries to remember how long he was sleeping. Why Dean would be so surprised to see him moving around.

"Dean." His voice sounds a hundred times worse than Dean's, which is ridiculous because he just woke up. It sounds like he's been screaming for a long time though which makes sense because he's been screaming for an eternity. The whole of it swells into his consciousness at once and Sam staggers under the weight of all that time. All that memory. He hears a male voice he doesn't recognize, and then Dean is talking and the sound of him holds Sam from spinning down into the darkness he's been in since forever.

"Ok Sam. I got you. I got you baby. October 5th, 2008. That's when it is, and you're in Eaton, Colorado at the Doc's house, and I'm here. You're not in Hell anymore Sammy. Not there. You're here with me, and this is real, and I got you. Won't let nobody near you again ok? You hear me? Nobody's gonna hurt you again, 'cause that's what I'm here for. To protect my little brother. Just hold steady Sam 'cause you ain't there anymore. You hear me?"

He can't talk again, but he can nod and hold on. Hold on to the furnace heat of his brother. Remember that this is where he's been trying to get for so long, and that he's finally here. There's a chair under him without warning but Dean stays in contact with him. Stays close. This isn't Hell anymore, and Sam can see that now. Of course he can because he'd know if he was still in Hell. Wouldn't he?

There's food in front of him suddenly, and he looks up to see Sadie's hesitant smile. He clears his throat three times before he can force his voice out over the rusty machinery that makes it. "I didn't let you down."

Sadie's face crumples and then breaks into a huge smile. "No you didn't Sam Winchester. You did an incredible job. Congratulations on making it back."

Sam reaches out then, touches her, and there's a substantial difference in the feel of her and the feel of Dean. For so long every sensation has been painful and obscure, lost in his new consciousness, and now he can feel flesh. She feels insubstantial the way he does, as if she's only half there and half spun dream webbing. It's more than comforting to feel it, and he grips her hand tightly. Dean's voice breaks the spell. "You need to eat Sammy. Will you eat?" It's strange because she said there'd be no pleasure, and while soft sheets hold no joy for him Dean's hands are hard and unforgiving and they thrill him beyond belief. Dean's a spark in the darkness, a promise of something lost but not eradicated.

Yeah. He'll eat. The food has taste, but taste is like a distant concept that Sam only half gets. It's there because he needs it, and because food is essential to the body continuing to run properly. He needs to eat. When it's all gone Dean stays and the plate disappears. It's the steady pressure of Dean that lets Sam know this is real. Dean is not everywhen like Sadie or Sam. Dean is one place and time. Dean is solid and stationary. Dean is-

 

\--------

**Eerie, Pennsylvania  May 28th, 2008**

 

Pressing a finger into Sam's asshole even as he bites Sam's thigh. It's distracting and engaging and hotter than fuck. Dean's all teeth and tongue, and Sam couldn't have ever really imagined how good this could be. A lifetime of learning every single one of the other's tells, of memorizing every sight and line and sound, and now they're learning new ones. Sam never knew for example that Dean's mouth could melt steel. Didn't know that Dean's fingers could carry an electric current, and fuck that hurt. Blunt pressure and burning and Sam wants more of it. Wants Dean to hurt him until he can't stand, can't walk to fight Lilith. They can just stay here, because secretly Sam knows it won't do them any good. It's the ritual that will save Dean, but he can't tell his brother that, and he can't call this attack off because if he does Dean will figure out something is wrong. It has to _look_ like Sam- _holy fuck_. Dean's finger is joined by another, and then in a move so shocking it's criminal Dean's tongue traces the line of Sam's rim and circles his own fingers. If it wasn't for Dean's free hand holding him down Sam would have broken his brother's nose when he jerked.

There's a laugh, husky and sweet, and it takes Sam a minute to figure out it's Dean because that broken pleading is coming from him. Which would be embarrassing if Dean's tongue wasn't moving into him along with those two fingers, and that blunt burning is giving way to something else entirely. He wants to ask Dean if this was the plan all along, or what he's supposed to be doing, but the best he can accomplish is his brother's name as he grips the sheets with one hand and Dean's shoulder with the other. Sam knows he's leaving bruises there, and he can't feel bad for that because Dean is bringing it on himself. He'd like to give something back to Dean. Would like to pleasure his brother as well, but then the tongue is gone and there's a third finger and Sam's keening. Keening and crying, and he'd can't think anymore. There are words. He's supposed to say words. _This is a ritual_. He can actually feel the spell energies coiling around them and gaining strength with every second of the pleasure and arousal.

Dean's mouth is on his cock again, and his brother is propped at an awkward angle. It takes Sam a while to realize Dean's digging in his jeans, and when he sees the condom come out he finds his voice. "No."

Mossy green and brown eyes meet his and Dean raises an eyebrow. His brother can claim Sam has a monopoly on the "bitchface" all he wants, but Dean can be just as stubborn and unyielding. There's a hint of that when he looks at Sam. "Sammy. I haven't been-"

"Don't care. Don't care Dean. No." After all, what's the point of worrying about that? Sam's world is ending in a few days and his shot at saving it is slim to none. Fuck the consequences. It fits with the role he's trying to play. The suggestion that he's giving Dean up entirely. They stay like that for what feels like forever, eyes locked and wills battling until Dean gives up and drops the condom. Removes his fingers from Sam and uses both hands to take off his jeans and to slick his cock with the lube and then Dean stops entirely and just stares. Sam feels self-conscious then, and he twists under the intensity of it until Dean licks those swollen lips and meets his gaze again. Sam's seen most of Dean's looks, but never this one. As if he could burn through Sam with his gaze alone. As if Sam is the only thing in the whole goddamn world with value.

He'd like to say something flowery and sweet. That this is them finally becoming each other's everything, but it would be untrue. Dean has always been Sam's world. Everything worth fighting for and believing in all wrapped into one bow-legged, pink-lipped, hazel-eyed package, and Sam loves him. Loves his brother more in that moment than he ever thought possible because only now does the true depth of that love make itself known. He's going to give up his life and his sanity for this and it's all worth it. Always has been, because it's Dean.

"So goddamn beautiful like this Sam. All spread out and fucked-up for me. Always wanted to see this, and now I got it." Sam moans at that and Dean's eyes go heavy-lidded and darker than Sam ever thought they could. "Fuck Sammy. Fuck."

Hot hands grip his thighs, spread them wide, and then the blunt head of Dean's cock is pressing against his entrance and Dean is holding his eyes as he pushes against him. There's a pause, and then Sam takes a deep breath and Dean pushes in without having to discuss what it is they're doing. They move in synch like they always have, one mind in two bodies, and it hurts but it's so fucking good. He's burning up from the inside, and he holds still just like Dean and takes deep breaths. The same sticky fingers that were inside him stroke along his stomach, and he relaxes slowly into Dean's touch. It takes a while, and that's ok because they don't have to discuss it. Dean's forehead pushes against his, and instead of kissing they breathe each other in. This is Sam's last chance, because once Dean starts moving for real Sam knows that his brother is going to fuck every last functioning brain cell out of his head, and Sam's going to love every second of it.

So he says the words. Says them softly into Dean's mouth and listens to Dean breathe them in and absorb them.

"What does that mean?" Dean moans it out because Sam chooses that moment to tense his muscles and grip Dean harder than before. Feels his brother shift another few inches inside.

"It means I love you. I have loved you all this time. You are the only thing I have ever loved."

There's a noise, thick and low in the back of Dean's throat, and then his brother repeats the spell as if it's nothing. They've spent their whole life doing it after all. Repetition and release. And it's good, so good, because after Dean says it he thrusts all the way in and Sam's head slams into the headboard with the force and power of it. Dean is in him. Dean and he are joined and Sam wants to see the place it's happening at, but all he can see are Dean's eyes swallowing him down and Dean's lips spit slick and plush descending towards his own.

 

\--------

**Eaton, Colorado October 7th, 2008**

 

Nate leans down and kisses Sadie's forehead before he moves on to make sure the house is secure. Hunt together? The shit he knows about the Winchesters can be put into two columns. _People They've Gotten Killed_ and _Things They've Killed_. They're a legend in the community, but legends are never wholly good. When he comes back he finds only Dean and a beer waiting for him. Sadie's feeling better, because she's subtly manipulating shit again. He'll have to keep that in mind. He glances once at his watch and sees that she's probably gone upstairs for her class. Dean answers his second question before he asks it.

"She took Sam with her. Said he'd like the lecture." Dean pushes the beer towards him and then studies him for a bit. "How long you been hunting?"

"Monsters? Since I was nineteen. My dad was real big on survival and self-sufficiency though, so a lot of my training started when I was ten." He doesn't ask the question back because everybody knows the Winchester story. Both boys raised in the life since they were knee-high to a grasshopper, and that's just filler if he brings it up. He takes a long pull from his beer and goes for a different question. "How long you been sleeping with Sam?"

Dean jerks once, looks up, and then raises an eyebrow. "That gonna be a problem?"

"Well that depends on your definition of problem. With me? Hell no man. It probably should be, but I've been doing this long enough to know that the rules ain't always applicable. Life is bloody and short, and we better take what we can as long as we don't hurt anyone along the way." He taps his beer bottle against Dean's when it's offered and then considers how best to state the next part. "But for you? It may be a problem. The Sadie thing got complicated after Hell."

There's a long pause where he simply studies the other hunter, and then Dean sips his beer and puts it down before he starts sliding it back and forth between his hands. "Have you been with Sadie long?"

"Never." That gets the same quirked eyebrow, and Nate laughs even though he shouldn't. "I always told her no. That it wasn't her kind of life, that it'd put her in danger, that I couldn't be devoted to her like that. After Dad and I started hunting we were in and out so much I barely saw her. Talked on the phone a lot. Emails. Shit like that, but not the kind of thing that constituted a relationship. I imagine it was all wrapped up in a lot of stuff, including me thinking I didn't deserve a girl like her. Then one night I'm staring down the barrel of Hell, I've had some drinks, my dad's dying in a hospital, and she takes her clothes off. You know how you know she's nervous?" Dean shakes his head and Nate takes a long drink. "She starts talking like a robot. Shuts down totally. 'I would like to have sexual intercourse with you.' That and stripping were her idea of seduction. Saddest part? Worked like a damn charm."

Dean's laughing, eyes crinkled at the corners and hand clutching the bottle. "Sam cried." The moment it comes out it looks like Dean wants to take it back, but Nate clinks his beer again and Dean continues. "Cried and was already naked. I was three days away from Hell. It was the first time."

Which is where Nate's concerns come in. "And I get that man. I really do, but now? When they're like this? How do we know we ain't taking advantage? They're tied to us. Belong to us. What's the line between want and obedience?"

It's a fear that's been brewing in the back of his head since he got back, and he half-hoped it would surprise Dean. That he'd see reluctance or something other than the knowing nod he's getting in return to his statement. Because this was the only damn person in the world who would understand his predicament.

"I always thought Sam wanted it because I did. Or because he thought it would tie us together. Some complicated bullshit like that, 'cause Sammy's always coming up with crazy plans. I never thought that he'd-" Dean's voice breaks and Nate knows exactly what he wants to say. What he wants to get across.

"It's a lot of goddamn weight. She keeps telling me I earned it by putting it on her first, but she didn't have to watch me be tortured. She didn't have to see the aftermath of it."

Dean's nodding, head eager and eyes showing how much beer he's already had. Nate can't judge him, because he's planning on getting pretty wasted today himself. The whole thing, Sam and Dean, it's too familiar. Too much like before. "Sammy's always doing shit like this. Self-sacrificial like it's ok. Like he's s'posed to protect me. I'm the older brother. I'm the one that's gotta do the protecting. Sam can't see that, but it's always been true. Since he was born. Now he's all broken up and I can't do shit but talk to him and hope he gets better. But he knew. Knew he wasn't gonna get no damn better because he researched it. He knew she didn't get better."

He feels like he should argue that, and then changes his mind before changing it back. How many beers has he had? The empty bottles on the table don't give a clear indication because there's no telling which are his and which are Dean's. "She's better. You shoulda seen her when she first came back. Worse off than Sam, and took her longer to get to that point. When she went back to work? Girl couldn't even make eye contact with anyone. Shook like a leaf if you touched her, and every damn sentence was flat and straight. Like they burned all the questions outta her."

There's a pause as Dean studies his beer bottle. " _Worse_ than Sam?"

Nate would love to stop. This isn't something he enjoys doing, and he's still a little iffy about the proposition of discussing what amounts to incest. Then again people in Hell want ice water, so he may as well just suck it up. "Yeah. Worse. You two are-" He tilts his bottles and wobbles it, knows Dean isn't sure what he means, and forges ahead. "-better together? Stronger. You may be just as bad at committing as I am, but you stuck by him through it. I left her."

That's when he notices Dean's eyes are wet, and damn if he doesn't feel like responding in kind. Too much fucking weight and too much fucking beer. "Sammy all obedient. Flies in the face of everything 'cause that boy ain't never liked orders. Always asks about them, always gotta push the envelope and demand. Used to fight Dad every step of the damn way before he started fighting me about it."

The next part comes out before he can stop himself. "My old man hunted with yours once. Mara in San Francisco. Said your dad was one of the best damn hunters he ever saw, but colder than a witch's tit."

Dean laughs. Laughs so hard any trace of that sadness is out of his eyes and his hands are gripping his stomach as he tries to get himself back under control. "Yeah. Yeah Dad could be cold. I got some of that but Sammy's just like mom. Always wanting to save everybody. Best damn witness handler I ever saw man."

They get quiet again, and then Dean leans forward and is the kind of suddenly serious that only happens when a person is officially drunk and beyond any form of verbal control.

"You think it could work? Me and you as partners and Sam here with your girl?"

Nate considers that for a long time. Could he be a partner? A real one? He hasn't hunted exclusively with anyone since his father, and he's always wondered. Pairs seem to work better, to last longer, and there's never been a person he gets along with well enough to try it out. Dean seems like a good guy, but his dad's warning rings in his ears the whole time. Then he thinks of Sadie standing there, eyes clear and defiant, a stronger shade of the woman he fell in love with than any he's seen in years.

"Actually I sorta do."

Dean nods once. Puts his beer down and stands on wobbly bow-legs. "Then let's do it man. Fuck it."

 

\--------

 

**Eaton, Colorado February 7th, 2009**

 

"But fuck it right? Am I right?" Nate's looking around with a big grin on his face and Sam tries to remember what he's asking. Dean is standing roughly two inches away from Sadie asking about pie cooling times, and Sam can't even remember what kind of pie it is. Smells like berries. Something with berries.

"Yeah. Yeah you're right." He's looking at Dean though. Studying the way his brother's bruised face pulls into a broad grin as he pokes at the pie on the counter and says something charming that makes Sadie nod but not grin. That's her though. Not grinning even when it's obvious she wants to. Sam tries to smile, but it feels odd stretched across his face. He can't smile the way she can sometimes, but he thinks with time he might be able to. It takes time to reorder what's been happening in his head, and what's been happening outside of it. Sam knows, for instance, that Dean and Nate have been hunting together. That his brother has been coming back every week to check on him, and that he keeps telling Sam his progress is incredible. Sam's not sure about that. He knows they just took down a nest of vampires, and that the two of them are feeling like kings right now. Which makes Sam feel good he thinks, but there's no telling.

He can string sentences together though, and every day he sounds a little better. When Dean's gone things get fuzzy, but Sam thinks he can handle that. That he can get over the hurdles one at a time if he tries very very hard. Doesn't change the fact that everything is still off and wrong. That this is today and yesterday all at once and Sam wants it gone. Wants to be free of it, but the best way out is through.

"Robert Frost." Sam's head jerks up and he realizes he's been talking aloud. Dean looks wounded, and Nate looks concerned, but Sadie is staring right into him. "It was Robert Frost that said that."

Dean clears his throat and then catches Nate's eyes. "Hey man we should grab some extra firewood. We'll be right back for pie ok girls?" There's a tightness to it that suggests that it isn't as much of a joke as Dean would like it to be, but Sam forces a smile again and watches Dean wince at it.

When he's alone with Sadie he finds himself standing near her as she slices pie. "Does it ever really get better? Do I ever get better so I stop hurting Dean?" Because that's what Sam did to deserve punishment. He let everyone down. _Especially_ Dean.

"You went to Stanford. That's a core school instead of a distribution so you took, what, Great Books? A Shakespeare class?"

That's hard to remember but Sam tries. Those were the Deanless years, when Jessica was a factor and Sam felt almost as lost as he does now. He remembers that's where he met a man who talked about books, but the name escapes him. This is the man that led him here though, so this should be important. Should be right there. Except when he strains for it all he gets is a picture of Dean standing there the night he left. When was that? He left for Stanford and Dean didn't fight him, didn't argue, and Sam wanted to be stopped but Dean wouldn't stop him. Which wasn't fair because Dean could never stop him. No matter how much he loved Dean there were things his brother just wouldn't understand and to suggest Sam should give in and betray his own judgment was-but if Dean said it now Sam would do it because Dean was right. Because Dean owned him, and that used to scare Sam but Sam isn't afraid of it anymore. He's afraid of blood and pain, and screaming. Sam can't stand screaming. But he was asked a question and that question was about Stanford. "Yes. I took both of those." _Clewsky_. It's a vicious and triumphant thought.

"There's a quote from Shakespeare. 'Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space-were it not that I have bad dreams.' Do you know what that means?"

No. No he doesn't and he shakes his head. If they covered that Sam doesn't remember it and he can't trace the meaning back to something he doesn't remember. He tells her all this and her lips tighten but she pushes back a lock of her hair before finishing her slicing. It's blueberry pie.

"When you can tell me the meaning Sam. That's when you're better. Wait for that alright?"

Which sounds good. He watches Dean and Nate come back in, and then watches his brother devour pie like there's no tomorrow. The bruising on Dean's jaw is worrying, but Sam suddenly can't remember how he got it and there's that smell of burning flesh again but he has to fight it off because Dean is eating pie and it will ruin the pie. That smell ruins everything. Taste and sound and joy and anger are all subsumed under the sickly sweet scent of Sam's own rotting and burning corpse. He must not be hiding it well because Dean is suddenly there, and Sam lets himself be swept up in Dean's strength. Remembers that it's going to be Thanksgiving soon and Sam is staying here for protection and that he can't help Dean anymore. Can't help anyone because he's broken, and that's how it is now.

Sam lets himself be led upstairs. Follows Dean's directions to shower and brush his teeth. It's dark outside so it is bedtime and Sam is led that way. When Dean comes back they always sleep in the same bed, and sometimes Dean calls this home but Sam sees the hesitance he has about it. By all technical definitions though it is a home. It's a home and they sort of live here when Dean is here and Sam sort of lives here when Dean isn't. So now they're in bed together and Sam touches Dean's shoulder and finds himself pulled into a tight embrace and surrounded by Dean's scent which is the only thing that takes away that burning flesh smell sometimes. The only thing that keeps Hell at bay. He clutches at Dean like he's an anchor, or a life preserver, and technically he is. A rock in a swiftly flowing river. Because time is everywhere and it takes Sam away, but Dean can stop it. _Time is afraid of Dean_. It behaves when he's around.

Asked later Sam wouldn't have been able to explain what it was that made him think it was a good idea, but suddenly he wanted to touch Dean. Wanted to see that look he remembers from before he was broken, and know that he can still do that for Dean at least. Can still give him that. He wants the connection and the comfort, and his hand slides over Dean's hip and down to Dean's groin. He slides it along and up, cups Dean and feels that his brother is getting hard. Dean starts to talk, but Sam shuts him up by locking their lips together and licking against Dean's lower one in the hopes that he'll get entrance. It doesn't take long, and then Sam can taste blueberry pie and mint and Dean and that's wonderful. That's perfect, because it's the first time Sam has tasted something and liked it in an eternity. He licks harder, pushing past the last of Dean's defenses, and searches for the source of that goodness. The core of Dean's taste, and this is what he needed. This is what he always needed, and if he could just stay here and be here then he could always be safe and whole.

Then their lips are parted and Dean's speaking in this husky and shot voice. "Sammy we-fuck this isn't-I don't want you to do something you don't want."

That's confusing, and Sam has to take a moment and consider Dean before he can even begin to get the implications there. Suddenly it all comes clear, and he wants to hit Dean for the first time since before Hell. His brother can be so stupid.

"Then shut up and it won't be an order jerk." He goes back to kissing, and Dean doesn't fight when Sam licks the seam of his mouth.

Dean's getting into it, dark and thick noises coming from his throat as Sam gets his hand under Dean's sweatpants and wraps his fingers along Dean's cock. He remembers how this works, how you make someone feel pleasure, and to Sam's eternal surprise he feels it again. Feels the simplistic joy of it, and that's the first time he's felt that in an eternity too, and he wants it. Wants all of it. Dean's not a spark anymore he's a fire, a promise fulfilled. Which is why when Dean breaks off and takes a deep breath as if he's going to speak Sam wants to stop him again and finds out he can't. Instead Dean starts talking, and his hands are grabbing at Sam's wrist like he's going to stop him.

"Sam-Sammy wait a minute man. Jesus slow down. This isn't-do you uh-" Dean's eyes glitter in the dark and Sam wishes he could see his brother's face better, because he's not very good at making vague connections anymore, but then Dean makes it clear with a sound in the back of his mouth and a slight withdrawing. That's no good. That can't happen.

"I want. I want this. Please Dean. Please. First good thing since forever. No more smelling Hell or feeling it when you're here and I need this. Need you to make me something closer to stationary because I'm going insane without it. I can't-"

It's Dean that shuts him up this time. Dean's mouth on his and Sam lets his brother lick into his mouth. Lets him taste back and enjoys every second. Suddenly he's under Dean, and there's warm breath on his throat and Dean's talking.

"Yeah ok. Ok baby I got you so just hold still and I'll do this. Just-" His voice shudders as his fingers push Sam's shirt up and off, and Sam loves every second of it. Loves the rasp of Dean's rough fingers along the smooth skin of his stomach and the sensation of Dean's erection rubbing against his hip as Dean undresses him. Whatever Dean was going to say is gone, lost in a sea of kissing and licking. Dean tasting his flesh and muttering about soap and sex. Something Sam can't understand, but he doesn't really want to because Dean's got his pants off too now and-

 

\------

 

**Eerie, Pennsylvania May 28th, 2008**

 

Dean's in. He can see the exact place where he and Sam are joined, and Sam's so fucking hot and tight that Dean can't think straight. Can't follow one logical thought process to another because that's him in his little brother, and it's a sick thrill that feels every kind of amazing even when he knows it shouldn't. Maybe he deserves Hell. He traces the line of their connection with one finger and Sam makes a noise like Dean is killing him. Which is fucking sexier than anything Dean's ever experienced in his whole life. He holds still though, because Sam has to be hurting. Has to. Except Sam isn't looking hurt even though it takes several more hard thrusts for Dean to realize the banging sound isn't his heart beating its way out of his chest, but Sam's head slamming into the headboard. Dean grabs Sam's thighs and pulls him backwards so that he's buried deep, but not pushing his brother towards head trauma with every deep thrust. There's a spot that one of Dean's kinkier hook-ups explained to him, and Dean angles and tries to find it even as he attempts to eat as much of Sam's skin as he can find.

Sam's talking again, saying something that doesn't make any sense, but it sounds like poetry or classical literature. Which probably isn't true, but Dean thinks it should be because his brother, it turns out, has a filthy fucking mouth in bed and it's better than anything Dean ever had to read in any of his classes. "Fuck Dean. Fuck yes. Harder, please, fuck, harder. I can't-" Then Dean hits it. Hits that spot and Sam's body arches like he's being electrocuted, and his face cramps up tight and his lips fall open so wide that Dean thinks he can see Sam's tonsils. All the words have been driven out of Sam, and now he's just making those broken rough noises and Dean wants him to make them forever. Wants to hear them the next time Sam starts bitching about shit.

Sam's coming apart underneath him. Dean loves it. Loves to see his big lanky brother spread below him with his face flushed and his head tilted back. Loves the way Sam's chest is getting red and mottled, the way his thigh feels gripped in Dean's fingers and the scent of sweat and sex mixed up with the smell of Sam. It's a good mix, one Dean thinks he should have all the time, and he knows that can't happen. He has to do his best to leave a mark so deep Sam will never forget it. To touch him in a way that he can carry with him all the years he lives beyond Dean. He keeps feeling though, skating his fingers over Sam's flesh and working his way to Sam's hard red cock. It's trapped between them and Sam is so busy ripping at the sheets and scratching up Dean's back that he's neglecting his own needs. Which is why it's so good that Dean's here to take care of him.

He grips it finally, hot and hard and heavy, and wonders when Sam got so big there and when he started thinking shit like this. Which is gone when Sam's muscles flutter around him and he lets out this half-formed shout of Dean's name. That's it. He loses the ability to think and simply moves-

 

\------

 

**Eaton, Colorado February 7th, 2009**

His fingers shake as Dean leads them in between his legs. He can't remember how this got turned around like this. One second he was underneath Dean and now he's on top. Dean's hand is burning into his wrist, and there's lube on his fingers as he traces Dean's entrance. He pushes one in, hears the hiss of pain, and he starts shaking harder. He's hurting Dean. Hurting him, and Sam should _never_ hurt Dean but he is and what's he supposed to do about that? Which is when Dean starts talking.

"Wanted this then too. Wanted to do everything with you. You're good Sammy. You're doing fine." Sam's still shaking, but Dean's voice lessens it a bit, and he moves his finger around and marvels that he ever thought Dean was hot. This is like dipping his finger into an inferno, and he tries to remember all the things he researched before he and Dean did this the first time. Except Sam was looking at the other end of it because he honestly never believed Dean would offer this. Which is when his fingertip finds something spongy and what was tight becomes complete constriction as Dean clamps down on him and jerks. "Fuck Sam-yes!"

Well that's good. That's a series of words Sam wants to hear again so he rubs Dean's prostate another two or three times until Dean is coming undone under him, and Sam adds a second finger as his brother's pretty mouth moves at light-speed.

"It's good. It's good. I'm not delicate man so just- _fucking hell Sam_!" He's licking Dean's shaft now, enjoying taste all over again as he gets a mouthful of velvety skin and precome. It's not a taste he's terribly familiar with, but it makes all the difference. Dean in distilled format maybe and that's an odd thought, but Sam's used to odd thoughts. He remembers what Dean did when they did this last time, and he mouths his way down Dean's cock and over his balls before licking at the stretched skin of Dean's hole. The sounds his brother makes at that make Sam lick harder, slide his tongue in with his fingers, and there's an earthy taste that isn't bad but is certainly different. Dean's actually whimpering, and Sam likes that. Likes it a lot, because it's a good sound and Dean's happy and Sam's happy for that. Happy and that's like waking up after a long nightmare because he never thought he'd be happy again but-

 

\------

**Eaton, Colorado November 13th, 2008**

Fuck it's funny and it makes her happy to see the way the demon's face tightens. It thinks that the pretty meat-suit will fool her, but she can see the truth. Has been able to since her trip, and now she's looking into one of those smoky twisty faces all over again as she considers her options.

"You're being used to test what I did. You're supposed to go back and tell your superiors that if they want Sam Winchester alive they'd better not touch Dean. That their suspicions are correct."

There's no more sultry sweetness in it. "What the fuck are you talking about you lunatic bitch?"

"They wouldn't tell you because you're low on the food chain. Probably not important enough to even be granted a slight bit of information. That's ok. You're not to blame. I'd recognize you if you were important, but you're what's traditionally called cannon fodder. If you died here they'd know their answer anyway, and you're going to die here. There's no real question of that. All that's left is for you to decide if you want to die ignorant, or if you want to die with the answer you didn't know you were coming for."

It sneers once and then crosses its arms under its breasts. "Indulge me crazy-town. What's the big secret?"

She keeps her eyes on the demon and considers the many ways she could draw this out. How easy it would be to lie. There's any number of options she has, and she could take all or none of them. That's one of the side-effects of meeting the Winchesters. Options. It'd be amusing if it wasn't against every belief she's ever held. Free Will indeed.

"Those marks on his hands, those aren't just for show. They didn't just give him access to Dean in Hell. They link them, intrinsically, make them one singular person in the eyes of the Damned and the Divine. It's poetic isn't it?"

"Yeah and real sweet. Then again we all had our suspicions about those two. None of this is news."

Sadie waits another few seconds and then taps her fingers against the wall. "So you're low on the totem pole and you're not very intelligent. That's a bad mixture. Sam can die, and if he does he'll go nowhere because he can't leave Dean."

It's eyes flash black and the snarl is back. "You've gotta be fucking joking."

"Not even a little. You kill Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester dies too. Ends up wherever his brother goes. That's the final trick. You bastards never even considered the implications, and now here they are. Demons may be tricky, but you've apparently never handled a really good Humanities Major." And then Sadie's laughing again because this is exactly the expression she was hoping for. She leans towards the edge of the salt line and keeps the grin evident on her face even if it already feels off. She has research to do. Work that needs to be finished. Plus, Sam promised to teach her how to play poker and she's never learned that. She'd like to. She thinks-

 

\--------

**Eerie, Pennsylvania May 28th, 2008**

He's going to die, and that's just fine with him. Because fuck it, this is a better place to die. Going down in a blaze of glory would be amazing, but going out buried balls-deep in Sam is possibly even better. There's pain here, yes, his muscles are straining to push harder than Sam can handle this first time and he's fighting himself not to bite Sam's lips bloody as he eats the moans and groans out of his brother's mouth. He wants very badly to slam so hard, but Sam's _Sam_ , and even now crossing this line he still sees something delicate in his brother. Something that needs to remain pure and untouched. He can't treat this like all the ones before. There's sweat and sound and the lights in the room are bright enough he can see the way Sam's pupils take over his eyes, how the dimples come out when his brother half smiles at the push-pull of his cock, or the way Sam's jaw hardens and then softens when Dean's grip shifts and pulls.

He's getting close, can feel his orgasm building and his balls drawing tight, and he's never wanted an orgasm less. He wants to stay here with Sam until there's no more time left. Wants to continue with this until the world ends and falls down around them. They've been together so long Dean can't imagine a better way for this to go down. Sam's all he's ever wanted really, and now he's got him and there's not enough time. Never enough time because-

 

\--------

**Eaton, Colorado February 7th, 2009**

 

Sam's being pulled up and then pushed down, and Dean's over him, and there's so much time in between them. Sam feels ancient and untethered underneath his brother, and he watches the dim light catch a hint of slick hipbone, a curve of muscle, the flex of Dean's thighs and then his cock is pushing at Dean's entrance and then he's _there_. Sam knows what forever feels like. Understands it in a way only two mortal people on the whole planet do, and this is forever. Dean's descent on his cock is slow and torturous and Sam's tempted to grab Dean's hips and slam him down but he can't. Can't because he holds perfectly still and clenches his fists and lets Dean lead. This is such a big fucking thing and Sam knows it. Knows from the way Dean holds himself that his brother is pushing every single one of his limits to give Sam this. To help Sam.

He wants to help Dean back. So he holds still and tries to not move until Dean growls above him. "I'm not a delicate girl Sammy. Fuck me." So Sam does. He thrusts upwards and now he's all in and Dean cries out once and then settles his hands onto Sam's chest. They're slippery and slick and this is everything Sam needs and most of what he wants. They're united like this again, and it suggests that Dean is considering him a person again. An equal. Which is great because Sam is willing to try his hand at that even if the idea of it is a weight on his chest that can't-but those are Dean's hands, and Dean's mouth eating his, and that's all that matters. There are no demons here and no pain, and all Sam wants is to control the stutter of his hips. All he wants is to remember only this and the moments connected to it. The ones in which he feels like he's a human being again because that's what he's been missing and that's all that-

 

\---------

**Eaton, Colorado November 13th, 2008**

Really matters is that the demon keep looking this way. Keep looking right at her. Normally this would be breakdown material, but Sadie's got this. Can keep control for just a bit longer. People in her position are masters of bullshit and Sadie can do it. She forces her face to show another slick smile, and the demon rankles a bit further.

"You think you'll get away with this free and clear crazy-town? Really? We may need Sam Winchester, but nobody needs you which puts your little boy on the top of our list. We told you there'd be punishment if you helped the Winchesters, and you just thought-"

"I thought," Sadie raises her voice to cut the demon off and to make sure everything is still on track, "that Hell would send muscle instead of brains. I thought that it would be supremely easy to get you talking. I also thought you would have figured out by now that killing Nate wouldn't phase me much. Your people burned that out of me. You have no leverage and no intimidation power with me. So as Dean would say, eat it bitch." She's fairly certain that's what Dean would say. It seems like a fair approximation at least and none of it really matters, because here it comes. Sadie watches-

 

\----------

**Eerie, Pennsylvania May 28th, 2008**

Sam fall apart completely, and with Sam's orgasm Dean isn't far behind. The clutching heat and the sounds tumbling up through the air to him tell Dean that all he really needed was to be here in this moment to know everything he needed to about the world. It's not that Dean's having a magical epiphany about potential beauty or clarity, but there is something there that he'd make fun of Sam for if it was coming from the other side. This is Sam and this is Dean, and they are Sam and Dean, and that's all there is. All there's ever really been. Who knows when it really started after all? When his parents first brought Sammy home and mom said, "this is _your_ little brother" or when Dad dropped Sam into his arms in the fire, or the thousands of times Dean saved Sam's hide? Does it matter? What matters is that Sam is here, and now, and everywhere on Dean. Physically and emotionally and all the other frilly, girly, chick-flick moment, gag-inducing bullshit Sam is there. He is Dean's completely and wholly, and that's what Dean will hold onto. That's what will keep him-

 

\------

**Eaton, Colorado February 7th, 2009**

Sane and whole and in this moment forever. Dean's coming apart on top of him and Sam can't believe how absolutely, marvelously, earth-shatteringly beautiful his brother is in this moment. Dean's not a pillar, not a rock in a stream he's a goddamn mountain, he's a monument to all the things Sam has lost, and Sam feels the edge of it then. The realization that he can be himself again, or close so fucking close, as long as he holds on to this. Holds on to the knowledge that Dean is not going anywhere and that he and Sam have an eternity, experienced the right way, to make a go of this. To belong to each other. It wasn't a pointless exercise and Sadie is wrong. Sam chose to follow Dean of his own free will, and that choice was-

 

\-------

**Eaton, Colorado November 13th, 2008**

The best choice she ever made. The only one that ever really mattered. To do things not because of logic, to avoid discussions of nature and nurture, and simply go with her heart. It was the impetus behind going after Nate, and the inspiration for offering Sam a place to stay, and now it's what has her leaning so close to the salt line it's foolish and reckless. It's what has her right there in the thing's reach, because this only has to go on another few seconds.

The demon makes a lunge, probably expecting the best to come of such an action is to humiliate or scare Sadie, and when it lunges it finds a completely different kind of barrier holding it back. The demon's black eyes blink to color, and then the masculine voice Sadie has been waiting for comes to the forefront of the action. Takes over the vibrating air and makes itself known, asserts strength and surety that makes Sadie's heart swell with something she almost believes is pride.

"Go to hell Meg."

Then there's a blur of-

 

\------

**Eerie, Pennsylvania May 28th, 2008**

Movement as Dean pulls Sam into his arms. Fuck the word cuddling, this is simply holding on. Holding on to what is his and remembering. Imprinting the scent and touch and taste of Sam into Dean's every molecule so that this is all he knows. This is all that's left. It's not like it doesn't scare Dean. The idea of losing Mom and Dad and every other thing he's ever cared about, but the thought of them tearing Sam away from him is unbearable and Dean won't let it happen. He let Sam down when he wasn't there to save him in Cold Oaks, and he's abandoning Sam now, but he can keep that. Can at least protect the memory of Sam because that's all that will keep Dean human. This is the only thing he needs to feel real, and moral, and alive so Dean-

 

\--------

**Eaton, Colorado February 7th, 2009**

Shatters and Sam holds his brother's hips and tumbles after him into the bliss of his orgasm. It's all sharp and jagged pieces, pain and pleasure, and Sam feels tears in his eyes even as he's laughing. Honestly laughing and did he think Dean was beautiful before? Because the smile his brother gives him is the best thing he's ever seen and god _he wants to keep it_. Wants to keep it forever. He'll slip in and out, he's not healed, but this is a step and a big one. He knows it without being told, that's what Sam's saying out loud he realizes because Dean's nodding. He actually starts to hear himself mid-sentence, which is bizarre beyond all reason.

"-and even if I slip Dean I'll come back. I'll come back to you. Always you."

Dean's arms wrap around him and Sam is buried in the smell of sex and sweat and Dean and that's just wonderful. Glorious. That's what the world should always smell like, but no one else should smell it, and his thoughts are already fracturing but Dean's got him. Dean's got him and the man is duct tape for Sam's psyche and that's what matters. That's what matters. Not the blood, and the torture, and hideous things they all said. None of that was real and now Sam-

 

\-------

**Eaton, Colorado November 13th, 2008**

Is removing the knife after the flash of light. _So that's what a demon's death looks like_ , Sadie has time to think right before she blacks out. She still can't handle blood very well, but when she comes back Nate tells her she's only been gone three days and that Sam took care of her. _Sam did_. And she tells Dean and Nate the story, about the demon coming and Sam's plan. Of how amazing he was when he snuck up behind it and used that special knife. Of Sam's prowess and strength and cunning. She tells the story to tell them, tells it so Sam can see it outside of his humble little recounting, but mostly she tells it to tell herself. That Sam is getting there, and fast, and that takes the guilt off. It takes the guilt right away, and that's good because Sadie couldn't live with the guilt too.

But this is it. This is her ticket back home really because there's hope now. It's always been a sad fact that Sadie, as smart as she knows she is, isn't very social or emotional. She knows the studies. Knows them. Quotes them to herself constantly, but here is her hope. Samuel Winchester and his remarkable love for his brother. Dean Winchester and his ability to hold onto the love and let it lead his brother back out. She'll work harder on Nate, because if her observations are correct then physical contact is a big part of the healing process. It's done wonders for Sam after all. Nate was so worried that the Winchesters would be a destructive force, but she's learned more from Sam than she has in all her years researching PTSD and trauma theory. Sam and Dean are the breaking of all those rules she's put into place to keep her hope dimmed and low. Sam and Dean are what she has to be like if she wants to be whole and in love again. More importantly Sadie's willing to try because this is-

 

\----------

 

**Eaton, Colorado December 20th, 2009**

The last hunt he'll go on with Nate for a while. They've agreed to Sam's ridiculous proposition to celebrate Christmas in some traditional sense. How could he say no though? Sam remembered that Christmas was coming on his own. Sam actually _reminded Dean_ that the holiday was coming up, and that's just fucking huge. That's just everything. Sam's not fixed. Not by any means is he a hundred percent, but his little brother is making it there in leaps and bounds. Maybe it's all false promise. Maybe this will end up being the same sort of there and gone again Sadie went through, and Sam's first exposure to the real world will result in him falling apart at the seams, but honestly? Dean knows the way back now. Knows how to lead Sam there and help him through each and every step.

Dean knows the way, and even if Sam gets lost sometimes Dean will be there to bring him back. It's a bizarrely symbolic version of their childhood, and it's hard sometimes to not see Sam's hand as the tiny one that Dean used to hold. The one that he'd grip so fucking tight to make sure that his little brother was right there beside him always in case the world decided to try and grab him. It's Dean's job to protect Sam, and that's always been true, but it's Dean's job to _preserve_ Sam too. To grip his little brother tight and keep him anchored down. Keep him here and now. That's not a new job he's come to realize. Sam's always had a habit of wandering just out of reach, and Dean's never seen before just how important it is to curb that. To give Sam as much length as he can while making sure that he's never going too far.

They're lying in bed that night and Sam is running his fingers over the stitches Nate put in Dean's side the night before after the ghost slammed Dean into the window. Sam's fingering each stitch individually so lightly and gently that it's hard to know if Sam's really touching him or if Dean's brain is playing tricks on him. "I could have done these better."

It's the first time Sam's spoken since Dean spilled inside of him, and Dean jerks a bit in surprise at the sound of it. He can't help the shit-eating grin that crosses his face. Sam is getting better at responding to emotion, and Dean's always amazed at how much that pleases him. "Yeah maybe. But the fainting and fluttering would've added a bit of time to the whole process." Sam punches him once in the stomach, lightly, and then flops back onto the mattress and covers his eyes. There's silence for a bit and then his brother starts laughing, and the sound is a goddamn _revelation_. A fucking choir really. "What's so funny Sammy?"

"I get it. I get what she was saying."

He raises an eyebrow that Sam can't see and then nudges his brother in the ribs once carefully. "Get what?" He tries to keep the creeping concern out, because it's never good when Sam starts to mentally wander. When those hazel eyes open though they're clear and present, and Dean feels a weight lift from his chest.

" _Hamlet._ She quoted _Hamlet_ to me. Said that when I understood it I'd be on the road to recovery."

Dean chews on his cheek for a second before nodding slowly. "So what'd you get?"

"I am a king of infinite space bounded in a nutshell Dean. Lock it all down tight and then the whole thing isn't so overwhelming. I just needed to get rid of the bad dreams."

He lets the silence spin out as he takes that in. Considers every angle of what Sam is saying and then hauls his brother into his body and grips him tight. It doesn't escape him that Sam's body temperature has risen drastically in the last few months, that touching him now isn't like it used to be. Like handling snow with burning fingers. "This is going to be a chick-flick moment isn't it? You gonna tell me I ran off the bad dreams 'cause I'm your white knight, and now you're all better and shit?"

His cock gives an exhausted twitch of interest when Sam bites the skin directly beneath his nipple. "Shut up jerk."

"Bitch."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was lightning in a jar for me. It flowed fast and hard, and it just wouldn't stop until it got there. It's also the thing I'm least sure of. There are, I am told, about six people in the world who really understand String Theory. I am obviously not one of them. If you are, or you at least have a good enough grasp to realize how badly I mishandled it, I am so very very sorry.


End file.
